


Welcome to my Void

by Shadow_Ravena



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Disappearing from the world, Eaten alive, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, The Void
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Ravena/pseuds/Shadow_Ravena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl wishing to simply disappear from the world obtains her wish, and falls into the Void. But the Void is not as safe or as quiet as it first appeared, and soon the girl must choose: her existence, or her SOUL. </p><p>But choices have consequences, a rippling effect that threatens to destroy all the girl holds dear. Can she undo the damage she has caused? Or is it far too late to fix her mistakes?</p><p>And when she meets others standing in their own crossroads, can she prevent  help them from making the same mistakes she had? Or are some fates truly inevitable?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter the Void

_Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock._

In the distance, voices laughed, talked, chatted away into the night. A girl rolls over and looks at the clock- one in the morning. Bedtime, for her. 

It's been a long day. A bad day. One of those days where reality seemed fuzzy, and time fluid. One second, it was the present. The next, it was ten years in the past. Faces and names were mixed up, old habits reborn. The girl had tried to keep track of now, of reality, but hadn't succeeded. 

Now, all she wanted was to sleep. For the day to end, for conscienceless to slip away. If she could, she would just... fade away. Fade and never come back. 

"Disappear... Disappear... Disappear..." she whispered to herself, wishing she could vanish from the world. She closed her eyes tight, trying to mentally reach for the darkness. Slowly she relaxed, her mind quieted, except the smallest whisper of "disappear". 

[[MORE]]

She opened her eyes to see... nothing. She sat up and looked around, trying to see anything but inky sky. 

"It's... empty," she said, talking to herself out of habit. She could hear her voice go on, fading away to nothing in the distance. If not for the floor underneath her, she would have thought she was in space. The place seemed devoid of sound or light. Or so she thought, until she looked down and found she could see her hand against the blackness. 

It substance felt like gel, almost, but more solid and not as sticky. She noticed that it didn't seem to have any temperature to it at all, or texture. She tried to push her hand through it, and found the gel moved aside easily. 

She grabbed a handful of the gel and pulled on it, curious how it would react. The gel seemed able to stretch out a few feet before finally breaking off of the floor, at which point the strand pulled up into the main mass in her hand. She pulled this mass apart again, and found it stretched the same amount before splitting into two masses again. She kept splitting the mass until it was too small to properly hold, and even time it stretched the same amount. 

She found that it took a bit of strength to pull the mass at all, like it was made of rubber. But unlike rubber, the amount of the stuff did nothing to make pulling it apart any harder or easier. Oddly, the stuff didn't seem very easy to pierce when in her hand, but she could easily submerge her hand into the "ground." 

Curious, she stuck her hand into the ground to see how far down she could reach. Her arm easily sunk in up to her shoulder, with no indication of there being any solid ground beneath it. She puts her head on the ground, trying to reach farther when... 

"SHI-!" she yelled, as the gel suddenly surged upward and enveloped her head. A second later it covered her body, and started pulling her under. 

She thrashed against the gel, but to no avail. She could feel nothing but the gel around her, choking her, blinding her. She punched and kicked anyways, damned if this... thing.... thought she would give up. She rapidly realized that thrashing would get her nowhere- this was like water. Or quicksand. She needed to go up. 

She forced her body to move through the gel, kneeling in the stuff. As though in water, she shot straight up, "swimming" towards the surface. The gel resisted her- she could feel it trying to hold her down- but she was _NOT_ going to die like this. Her lungs burned from being submerged, but she ignored the pain. 

Arms up, get a grip on the stuff, use legs to gain move height, repeat. Her lungs were almost beyond feeling pain anymore, her mind clouded. When her vision started to blacken she panicked. _No, not again! I will not go like this AGAIN!_

With a surge of adrenaline, she shot upward, finally managing to get an arm out of the gel. The gel started to creep over the arm again, but before it could, the girl heaved her head above the gel-line, coughing and sputtering. She heaved, trying desperately to get any air into her, the gel out of her lungs. Eventually she hacked up a bit of the goop and could breathe more easily, even if her lungs still burned, the air itself having turned acidic. She waved her arm to get the gel off, then forced her other arm up. The gel climbed up her back as the girl braced her arms against the 'floor' and tried to heave the rest of her body up. The gel started to collapse underneath her arms, threatening to engulf her again, but the girl reared back. 

"Alright, you gunna be like that then? Fine! I don't need my arms." The girl pulled her legs up under her again, but instead of swimming, she tried 'stair-casing.' The gel resisted her every movement, but the girl was determined to get out of the damn gel. The girl radiated anger at the stuff, and it seemed to almost coil away from her. It became easier to move, and she finally got both legs above ground again. 

She panted, exhausted from her efforts, but she knew she couldn't stay still. The gel would try to eat her again if she sat down. So she started walking. She knew in the back of her mind that this was pointless, but she had to try and find some safe ground. 

"If this damn gel will eat me whatever I do, I'll just have to find where it isn't. I don't care how empty this place seems- the stuff can't be EVERYWHERE." Talking helped her think, normally, and kept her company. She didn't expect an answer, so she was shocked to hear... snickering? 

"What the...? Hey! You! Whatever the hell you are! I heard that. Don't think in this damn void that I wouldn't hear that. You won't win! I WILL find someplace safe here. You can't stop me!" 

She felt incredibly silly, yelling at nothing. But she couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had laughed controlled the gel. It had gone from utterly formless to a sentient mass in a second- that indicated something controlling it. And whatever it was, it didn't seem to like her much. 

Well, being disliked wasn't unusual for her. Or being threatened. She'd just have to find a way to beat this thing. 

Or, maybe just reason with it. Quieter now, she said, "Hey. Whatever you are. I have no reason to fight you. I just want somewhere safe to hide. I'm not sure why you dislike me, but could we talk it out? 

"If you want to talk, my name's Aster. What's your's?" 

Aster heard nothing in response to this, but something felt difference. The crackling feel in the air had been replaced with a softer quality. She smiled- maybe this place wasn't so bad after all. 


	2. In a Dark Realm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's only so much to do in the void, but fortunately Aster likes to talk to herself. But what will the sentient goop think of this?

Aster walked through the void in silence for a long time, but never ran into anything. Eventually, the adrenaline rush she felt earlier wore off, leaving only exhaustion. Still, she walked on, refusing to stop until she found refuge. 

Her body had other ideas, however. Humans weren't made to walk for hours on end with no food or sleep, and she had already had a long day before all this. Slowly, her eyes started to droop, and she started to stumble forward. Still she walked, pushing herself onward through force of will alone. 

Without a sound, she fell to the ground, asleep before she even hit the floor. 

"Hmr? Wha... get off get off get off!" She awoke with a start to find the goop covering her again, but this time leaving her head above ground. She sat off, the goop easily sliding off her and back into the ground. This stuff seemed more liquid than before, less like gel and more like a weird slime. She stood up, shaking the goop off of her as best she could. 

She started running, once again determined to find someplace without the damn goop. It took her about twenty minutes to realize something was wrong, different from before. She looked down at herself, and instead of seeing her pajamas... she saw the goop. 

"No no no no get off of me!" She pulled at the goop, and it came off of her skin. It took her about ten minutes to get all the stuff off of her, as it stuck to her like glue. It hadn't left a mark that she could see, to her relief. To her dismay, the goop seemed to have... eaten her clothes. 

"If there was anyone around I would die of shame..." she muttered. But there was nothing to be done. At least the goop hadn't eaten her... 

She started walking again, still feeling vulnerable and self-conscious. To take her mind off the situation, she started to sing a song. "The clock stopped ticking, forever ago..." 

Time passed, though she had no way of measuring it. She sang songs, finding she could more easily remember them here than she ever could at home. "I wonder if it's because there's no distractions here?" she muttered. 

She knew that... something... could hear here, but she didn't really care. Maybe it would be amused by her prattling. At least it didn't try to kill her this time. Whatever the goop was trying to do, it didn't seem to want her dead... why else leave her head exposed? Though it was strange... 

She walked and walked, and eventually she started to feel exhausted again. It worried her that she'd apparently gone a day or two without food, but she didn't feel hungry. Why did she feel tiredness and not hunger? Nevertheless, she had to sleep, and this time she didn't want to pass out. She lay down on the goop, determined to wake up _before_ the goop engulfed her this time. 

An unknown time later, she did awake, and once again found the goop covering her like a blanket. She merely sighed and sat up, and noticed that the goop gave no resistance this time. She stood up, and once again the goop covered her body completely except her head. She pulled at it, but instead of pulling it all ff, she simply made it more clothing-like. In the end, it looked like she was wearing a pair of Gaucho pants and a baggy T-shirt. She felt more comfortable wearing clothes, even if the cloth was made of the goop. 

She walked and walked, still talking to herself all the while. Her voice would get raspy after awhile and she would stop, but when she did she could hear something. "... echo in the mirror..." 

She stopped, surprised. It was the song she had been singing earlier! It sounded distant, like the singer was miles away from her, but she could still make out the tune. "Huh," she said, voice cracking. "Guess you like that song? Thanks for the playback, regardless." 

It was her favorite song, so maybe the void was just being nice and playing it for her? Even if it wasn't, she felt the thank-you was warranted. Whatever the void entity was, she wanted to be on it's good side. 

Eventually, she went to sleep again, and awoke to find that her clothes had remained intact, and that the goop had otherwise stayed away, besides sticking to her exposed skin a bit. She looked at them surprised, then smiled. "Thank you for the clothes," she said to the void. She heard something- a quick chime of little bells- and smiled. 

"Just like the Little Prince..." she muttered. "How about I tell you that story?" 

The void didn't respond, but Aster went ahead anyways, narrating the story. She found she could remember it perfectly, despite her memory not usually being that good. The void seemed just a bit warmer afterwards, as though the story itself gave off energy and heat. She found this curious, and decided to narrate another story she knew by heart. 

The void seemed to react slightly to every new story it heard. She had noticed it reacting eventually to stuff like music, but the shortness of the tunes made any noticeable reaction impossible. These long books produced a greater reaction- one of warmth, friendliness, sometimes even sorrow, if the story was sad. 

The girl spent an unknown amount of days walking and narrating, a routine eventually settling in. She would wake up, and start off with something random, whatever she remembered first. After that, the void would react, and make a "request." It would give a flash of emotion to indicate the kind of story it wanted, and changed temperature for the length and pacing of story. Aster had spent much of her life reading, and with the memory-enhancement of the void, it took weeks for her to run out of material. 

But eventually, she had narrated every single book she'd ever read. After this, she paused, and said. "I haven't read anything more. But I know a lot of movies, tv shows, that sort of thing. I'm not the best at describing visuals, but I can try, if you'd like that?" The void gave off an air of agreement in responce. 

She had found that as time passed, the void had grown more complex. While it still looked like the empty blackness it was before, now it always had an air to it. An emotion. She could feel it around her, speaking to her. The void could not speak, but she could understand what it wanted, in a way. 

It had respected her body, and no longer tried to eat her. She still walked, if only for something to do, but she didn't fear the goop anymore. Whatever it was, and whoever it's ruler was, it seemed more... hungry than malicious. It wanted substance. And accepted her stories as payment. 

"Just like Scheherazade," she said, laughing. She didn't mind playing that role. She worried slightly about what would happen when she finally ran out of ANY material, but not so much. 

She found that when narrating visual content, she "saw" the events in question in front of her, like a hallucination. She didn't know if this was her mind or the void's doing, but she didn't particularly care. The void didn't seem to want her to narrate what happened "on screen"- flashing annoyance whenever she did- only for her to do the sound. She just rolled with it. 

Eventually, though, she wanted to re-see an old movie, one of her favorites. She tried to remember it, and found to her shock that she couldn't. She had an impression of it, but all the details were fuzzy. "What the...? Did the void take it _from_ my memory? That... really? I really wanted to see it again..." 

She supposed she should have expected this, so she wasn't angry, just sad. But as she walked, she saw something. Off to the right, there was something not-black on the ground. Curious, and more than ready to see something new, she walked towards it. 

As she approached the strange object, she saw that it looked like a tablet, all grey with a black screen. Across the top of the tablet was the name of the movie. Aster touched the 'screen', and suddenly the movie started to play! It looked exactly like she remembered it, and she sat for awhile watching it. When the movie ended, she put the tablet down and thought. 

"I suppose... the void keeps a record of whatever it sees or hears, or takes from me. And it can make this record manifest if necessary... interesting. Well, as long as I have access to it, I don't really care..."

It did worry her slightly that the void could literally take her memories away- what if she lost everything? Couldn't even remember her own name? 

The only comfort she had was that, currently, she could remember her name, despite saying it. "Maybe the void only records stuff it finds interesting? Or that I'm okay forgetting?" She really didn't care if she forgot the books, she could always re-read them. She couldn't figure out how much the void respected her wishes- it had started off not caring at all, but now accommodated her to a degree. 

She sighed, and said, "I wish I could talk to someone about all this. Even if it's just the sentience that controls this place..." 

She thought some more, and said slowly, "Can you talk? Or do you need more knowledge in order to be able to? If I keep on providing information, will you grow more in sentience?" 

The void grew warmer again, as though it agreed, but she didn't feel the emotion of agreement like before. In fact, she felt almost an air of frustration... like the void was annoyed she hadn't figured it out yet. 

_Figured what out?_ she thought. _And why is it disagreeing with itself? Since when could it?._

_Hmm... could it be that the void isn't one entity like I thought it was? But two? And the more advanced creature, the one capable of emotions, is annoyed with me?_

She stood up, and said, "Sorry if I'm being thick here. I don't think I understand, not yet, but I'll try to figure it out. 

"You... you're not exactly the void, are you? You're something else, something related but different. Like... the leader? The leader of whatever sentience the goop has?" 

She immediately felt a sense of triumph, as though someone was shouting "YES, finally!" It calmed down almost immediately, like the emotion was a silly outburst. 

Aster smiled, and said, "Okay, I 'hear' that loud and clear. I'm guessing from your earlier 'response' that the communication issue is on my side?" 

The void leader gave an air of agreement again, this time mixed with a bit of a tolerating patience. Aster supposed the whole thing was annoying to him- it- whatever- but she didn't know how to fix it. 

"Well, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I'll try to figure it out! Promise. It's not like I'm going anywhere anytime soon. 

The leader seemed sad at this, but the sensation was so faint Aster wasn't sure if she had it correct. In any case, she'd try to figure out the communication issues. But for now? She would walk and talk, and make the void a little less lonely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! Just a note, I have a blog for this story, that currently has more chapters up. I post here weekly, but on Tumbr whenever I'm finished. These chapters have more editing, but the others are sooner. Anyways, here's the link: http://welcometomyvoidrealm.tumblr.com/


	3. Not Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster keeps on trying to communicate with the void, but what creatures lurk within this empty realm? And can any of them be trusted?

Aster still hadn’t figured out how to talk to the void leader when she finally ran out of any material to talk about. When she finally exhausted all stories she knew, she related any bits of science and history she could remember. This came harder, as though the void found it boring. It seemed to like history stories, but once she reverted to dry facts and dates her memory froze.

_Weird. I wonder why it prefers stories? Maybe because they have an emotional element?_

The void had grown in its emotional abilities, now easily able to relay complex emotions and even short phrases, in a way. It wasn’t an auditory response, but she could ask questions like “What did you like best about this story” and receive an answer she could understand- the joy of the endings, the empathetic pain of the character, the suspense of the plot; all rolling over her. It wasn’t words, it was more. It was like a mind to heart link, or mind to mind.

“Mind to mind…” she muttered. “Almost like telepathy. Hmm… I wonder- is it telepathy? Is that how the void communicates?”

She received no response, but she didn’t expect one. The leader got annoyed at her fifth random guess and made it abundantly clear it wouldn’t give her any more hints. She needed to figure it out legitimately.

The idea of telepathy wouldn't leave Asters mind. Now that she had nothing else to do, she went along trying to mentally talk to… Anything.

_Hello? Can anyone hear me? Is there anyone there? What’s your name?_

She would try this line of conversation first every time, before moving on to questions she knew it had responded to before. _What’s your favorite story? What makes a good character? … Are you lonely?_

It couldn’t help responding to the lonely comment, as every time she vocally asked it the void responded with this wave of sadness. If the void could understand her, it would respond to this question.

She tried many methods of trying to communicate. She would “push” her thoughts forward, or try to radiate them outward, or picture a target and “speak” to it. Nothing worked, however.

Even if it didn’t work, it still exhausted her to try, and after a session of telepathy training she would simply garble. She let her mind wander anywhere it wanted to, thinking about any random topic. Some trains were normal- what would be the consequences of human immortality- and some were strange- what would a spider say if it could talk- and many were downright morbid- what would a burning human look like, how could this knife best kill? 

But eventually, her mind were clear a little bit, or the line of thought would turn more productive. Then she would work on her stories. She always had many stories buzzing around in her head. Some were fleshed out, with a full cast and plot, but many were little sparks, needing fuel and time to grow. She bounced around from world to imaginary world, coming up with characters, festivals, kinds of fauna or rules of magic. Without the distractions of Earth, she could focus on her imagination and let it run freely. She always felt tired, but happy, after these sessions. She never had a chance to do this at home- things were always too busy, and she was always too tired. 

The void might be empty, but here she was free. 

But the emptiness started to wear on her after a long time. She wanted to talk to someone- _anyone_ \- at this point. She had tried and tried, but she never couldn't communicate with the void. After awhile, she couldn't play emotional charades anymore- she had exhausted all questions it could answer. 

Frustrated, she yelled, "You know, a HINT might be nice!" 

But nothing responded. 

She tried again. "Hey! Answer me! I know you can hear me!" 

She felt... fear?... in response. Fear of what? Of her? 

Aster was too angry to think this through. She was alone, and tired of being alone. The fun had worn off of her little trip. "Well if you freaks won't answer me, then let me go. I've been looking for an exit for YEARS now, let me go! I'm sick of this loneliness- I can be lonely at home, and at least there I can get some FOOD!" 

The void didn't respond, but she could feel the fear growing, almost palpable now. She felt a message with it- be quiet. "Be quiet? You want be to be quiet now?! No! Absolutely not! Give me some answers!" 

The void felt panicky. Quiet quiet quiet it radiated, almost desperately. _You don't know what you're doing, you can't go home-_

"What the hell do you mean, I can't go home?! I won't let you TRAP me here!" Aster swung forward, not hitting anything but not realizing it. 

Suddenly, a fist slammed into her back, knocking her to her knees. "The hell was..." But something kicked her through the air. 

"Oof!" Aster gasped, then turned to see what hit her. What she saw made her blood run cold. It looked like a human, if a man could be made of dark flames and had flaming eyes. It leered at her, drooling blood. 

Aster froze, her mind not comprehending what she saw. Then her instincts clicked in and she leaped up and started racing away from the monster. 

It laughed at her, a screeching sound that hurt her ears. Aster raised her hands to cover them when she slammed into another monster. It turned, it's flaming eyes illuminated the furred body. This creature looked like a werewolf, and it also salivated at her. 

"No no no no..." Aster muttered as she wheeled around and ran in a different direction, only to slam into yet ANOTHER monster, this time a giant goat creature. It smiled at her, but it's smile seemed sad, like it knew what the other's would do to her and couldn't stop it. 

Aster couldn't help but wonder why this monster looked sad, not hungry like the rest. "Do you even want to do this..." she whispered, but it looked aside. Any thoughts of finding an ally were quickly dashed when it pulled out a flaming trident and swung at her. Aster leaped back and started running again. 

"Light light light, I need a LIGHT! I can't see where any of these things are!" The flamings eyes kept blinking in and out of existence, sometimes right in front of her. Aster ran and ran, struggling to avoid hitting anything and wondering if she was surrounded and just didn't know it. 

_Light, light, give me a LIGHT! Please! These things are going to kill me!_ Aster thought desperately. 

As she ran, she started to feel a burning in her chest, but it wasn't related to the running. She closed her eyes and focused on that feeling, trying to drag it out of herself. She didn't know what it was, but at this point she was willing to try anything. 

She gasped and lurched as the burning thing- a glowing mass- burst out of her chest. It floated in front of her as she ran, not giving her any chance to look at it. She didn't care. With light, she could see the shadow-monsters all around her. 

She danced around in a circle, looking for a break. _There!_ Two monsters stood too far apart, she could run through. 

She dashed towards the gap, grabbing the mass and throwing it towards the monsters. They cried out and darted to the side, the light apparently hurting them. _Yes! Score one for the light orb!_

Aster burst out of the circle, and pelted forward. The mass returned next to her head this time, letting Aster get a better look at it. It was... a skull? The most cartoony-looking skull she'd ever seen, but clearly a skull with dark teal eyes. "Teal, really? Why?" Aster gasped. 

She didn't have time to think about it, only to run. She saw another monster in front of her and swerved around it, but saw another group of it. She couldn't keep running around them, she was already getting tired. Her adrenaline was fighting to keep her awake, but she knew she couldn't keep this up for much longer. Much more, and she would collapse. 

She didn't want to throw the skull again in case it smashed, but she needed it's light to ward the monsters away. _Wait, they hate light, right? What if I could fire a beam of light...?_

She closed her eyes again and focused on the skull, imagining it firing a beam from it's mouth. The burning sensation started up in her chest, nearly suffocating her. She ignored the pain and kept focusing, and the feeling grew stronger. When it was about to "pop" she thrust her arm forward and opened her eyes, as the skull opened it's mouth and firing a searing beam of light towards the monsters. 

They screamed in pain, and seemed to wilt under the light. Aster ran right through the remains of one them, shuddering when her foot hit the shadow mass. It was as cold as ice. 

The blast took a great deal of energy out of the girl, and she started to stumble as she ran. She didn't see any creatures, but she could hear them behind her, roaring in anger. 

Eventually, she tripped over her feet and crashed to the ground. She turned and looked back, and saw the creatures maybe thirty feet away and closing. As she watched, the skull flickered and crumbled away, but she was too tired to care. 

She lay on the ground, remembering how it had once consumed her. "Heh. I fought the goop only to be eaten by the monsters... I would have preferred the goop... at least I know it isn't evil..." 

She laid her head down, contemplating just falling into the goop to escape the monsters. As long as she could hold her breathe, she could stay in relative safety- she doubted that the monsters could follow her there. 

She shifted to lie flat on the void, willing herself to fall through, merge with the void. She quieted her racing thoughts, focusing only on the void. 

She was surprised to hear a small voice saw, "Aster?" 

"Yes? Whose this?" she answered, still thinking. 

"There isn't time. The creatures will soon descend upon you." 

She chuckled silently. "I've noticed. After all this, I'll die here anyways." 

"I can protect you, if you truly meant what you said." 

Aster 'looked' up. "You mean about falling into the goop?" 

"Not falling. Merging. Becoming one with the void itself. They won't be able to hurt you if you do so." 

Aster grew quiet. "Won't I lose myself if I do that?" 

"If you are the kind of person I think you are, no. You should be able to retain your consciousness and soul." 

"My soul?" 

"This process will consume your body. All you will have left is your soul, but it will be your own." 

"But won't I still be trapped here then?" 

"Is it better to be trapped or eaten? And I would not be so quick to assume you cannot leave here. You entered willingly, did you not?" 

Aster had forgotten about that. She had thought she could exit if she wanted since she entered by willpower, but as the years dragged on and she never escape she assumed she couldn't. 

She turned the idea over in her mind. Danger or not, she knew that this decision was irreversible. Eventually, she thought, "Okay. I'll do it." 

"Good. Just lie still, and do not struggle when you feel the void take you. I will warn you, this will hurt. But you will be alive. The monsters would not have offered you that courtesy." 

"I figured as much. Thank you... Leader." 

She could feel his surprise. "Leader?" it asked. 

Aster smiled. "You are the leader, the independent voice, aren't you? I'm sorry I've been so rude to you." 

"Forgiveness granted, Aster. Now, lie still. Keep your mind open." 

Aster did so, holding mentally onto the voice, the leader. He knew what he was doing. She hoped. 

The void surged up around her and pulled her under. She could hear the monsters roar above her, not two feet away. 

The void pulled her down, down, down into the mass. She felt it stripping away her flesh slowly, just the outer layers, but then speeding up the deeper it went. Aster tried to hold her tongue, but the pain made her cry out. She couldn't speak in the mass, the mass just entering her lungs and eating her from the inside. She could feel it breaking her body into little pieces, bits of her breaking off into the mass to be further consumed. She dimly thought that the void was at least trying to do this quickly and as painlessly as it could, but nothing could make being eaten alive not painful. 

It left her neck and head alone until it finally found her soul. She could see it through the goop, glowing white. But a moment later the void broke her neck, and she passed out. 

The last thought she had was that she wanted to see her brothers again, to say goodbye... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who ever said that the void was nice?
> 
> http://welcometomyvoidrealm.tumblr.com/


	4. Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every action has consequences, some spreading wider than anyone could anticipate. But to give up your life and become a soul- what would be the consequence for that?

"Brothers... where are you...? 

"I need to find you... say goodbye... 

"I need to go back... 

"Back... back to the start.... return to my world.... 

"Return... yes... return... 

"Return...." 

Aster slowly came back to consciousness, her mind fuzzy. She tried to blink, to focus on her surroundings, but found she couldn't move. She panicked for a second, but paused when she heard something. 

"What...? Who are you...?" The voice sounded far away, but familiar. She tried to remember who it was, but she couldn't. 

[[MORE]]

She faded out again, faded away. "No..." she thought... "I need to find them... I need to find my brothers..." 

She felt herself slowly fade in again, though where to she wasn't sure. Her mind was still foggy, but it felt slightly clearer. "What... happened...?" 

She remembered darkness, something surrounding her, consuming her... she struggled to remember what happened before that though. Before she could reach that far back, she heard the voice again. "Who are you? What do you want?" 

She tried to go to the voice, to respond, but she felt herself fade out again. She was starting to get annoyed with the fading. "Let me stay in one place would ya?" she thought. 

Soon, she felt herself fade back into reality, this time her mind clear. She couldn't remember what happened, but she was distracted by something: now she could see. 

She was standing in a living room, it looked like. The decor was a gaudy mix of pink and orange, from the walls to the chairs and table. It would have looked like a sunset if the colors weren't so bright. 

She rubbed her eyes and tried to focus a little on what she saw. There was a table with three chairs, a glittering chandelier above it. Near this was an opening to what looked like a kitchen, but it was covered in flour. In the center of the room was bright purple rug with a coffee table on it, the table itself covered in stacks of magazines. In front of the table was a simply enormous television which sat on a little table that seemed to bow under it's weight. Around the TV, and indeed all over the walls, were pictures of a dashing figure who had shock-blond hair, blue eyes and an artificial tan. Oddly, he also had prosthetic arms, though Aster had never seen prosthetics that advanced before. In some photos, standing beside him was a younger boy. 

Aster looked twice at younger boy's face before she recognized him. "Pap?" 

It was her youngest brother, Papyrus, or Pap for short. He looked much older than Aster remembered, but some things never changed. Dark hair, brown eyes, and an open, honest face. He was smiling broadly like he always did, cheeks impossibly high, eyes squeezed closed. He had always had a tall, narrow face that should have made him look intimidating, if it weren't for his bright eyes and eternal smile. 

Aster smiled to see him so honestly happy. "Wonder who the luck guy is?" she muttered.

To her amusement, Pap was about a head taller than the other guy, and stood leaning on his shoulder. He didn't seem to mind, looking at Pap with a soft smile. "Aww, he likes him too, good. Glad he's happy at least." 

But what about the middle child- Sansevieria? Or Sans for short, because Sansevieria was ridiculous. Their parents liked plant names far, far, far too much... 

Aster remembered her next-younger brother- always shorter than them, with brown hair and blue eyes. If Pap was the sun of the group, Sans was the stars, always shining brightly, bringing hope to their small world. He would joke and be silly, just to make Pap laugh. Around Aster he had always been quieter, more contemplative. They'd talk for hours about science- astronomy, mostly, a shared interest. Aster preferred more computer or tech related topics, while Sans preferred more quantum or space related topics. Of course, as kids they didn't know much of anything, but it was fun to talk. 

Aster looked around the room again, trying to spot Sans. He never was far from Pap, and that cooking mess HAD to be Pap. He had always liked cooking, but even as a little kid he was bad at it. They'd teased him about it, but ultimately always ate his food- couldn't hurt his feelings, after all. Sweet lil' Pap. 

Aster spotted a lump on the couch, like someone was curled up sleeping. "Sans? Is that you?" she said, but heard nothing. Confused, Aster tried talking again, but no sound came from her. "What the heck is going on?" 

Aster had reached the couch by now, and tried to lift the blanket lying over... something. But when she tried to move it, her hand went right through it! 

"What the heck?!" she said, pulling her hand out. She tried again to move it, but again her hand just fazed through the blanket. Now Aster noticed what her hand looked like and cried out. 

She had always been pale, but now her skin was paper white and almost formless. Her fingers were reduced to five thin blobs, her palm a round blob attached to the end of her arm. All of her visible skin was white, standing out sharply to her black clothes. She was once again wearing her shirt and gauchos, but now they went down to the floor and looked almost skirt-like. Or robe-like, given that they melted into her shirt. Her shirtsleeves too were much longer, coming down to her elbows and trailing after that. Aster felt her face, relieved to at least feel her normal mouth, eyes and ears. But they all felt flatter than normal, smoothed out, and she lacked any eyebrows or nose. She felt her hair, but it was matted down completely, the end of it melting into the shirt. She couldn't even feel ears under her hair, though she could still hear. 

A much more worrying change was two cracks she could feel in on her face, one extending up from her right eye, one trailing down from her left eye to her mouth. How had she gotten these cracks? She had never injured herself like that... The cracks seemed fairly deep, as she could push her fingers through them. She felt... nothing behind them. Almost like she was hollow. Why was she like this...?

With a crash she remembered falling into the void, being consumed by it. She fell to her knees, clutching her now-aching head. "That's right, I lost my body. Then... what is this...? 

She opened one eye and looked at the "clothes" again. She tried to pull at it, to see if it was still the void goop, but found she couldn't grab it at all. The clothes seemed fused to her skin, or was her skin. She tied pulling her hair and found it was also fused to her head. It was like her entire body was made of one, intangible material. “What am I?” she asked.

Before she could do anything else, the lump moved, rolled over. An eye poked out from under the blanket, half-closed at first. It widened with shock when it spotted her. "Aster, is that you...?" 

Aster stared, but groaned when the pounding in her head suddenly increased. _Not suppose... not supposed to..._  a voice whispered. She blacked out again. 

She came to to the sound of angry voices. "I know I saw something," a voice said. Dimly Aster remembered it was Sans'. He must have been the lump... 

"You just have just been dreaming, darling. You always have vivid dreams, no?" a new voice said. Aster tried to open her eyes, see who it was. She could force one eye to half-open, revealing her brothers and the dashing stranger. 

"Heh, suppose you're right Mett. It was just a ghost of a dream haunting my thoughts," Sans said, but Aster could see the falseness in his smile. Pap could to, and frowned. 

"Sans, who did you see anyways?" 

"Ast- A specter is all." 

Aster frowned. Why was he lying to Pap? Something was wrong. 

She tried walking over to the group, and stood behind Sans. She knew Sans could see her, but could the others? 

If Pap noticed anything, he said nothing. Mett wasn't even looking in their direction, instead checking his phone. "Well darlings, I must be off. My _agent_ absolutely demands that I attend this little meet-up. Pappy, will you join me? I will be _so_ bored otherwise." He flashed Pap a brilliant smile. Aster rolled her eyes, but Pap was grinning. 

"Su-sure Mett! I'm sure people would want to be the Great Papyrus!" 

Mett slapped his back. "But of course they would, darling. You're a st _ar!_

Pap blushed, but immediately hid it behind a boast. "But of course! I'm the biggest star in the world!" 

Mett chuckled, and took her arm. "Shall we be off?" He led her towards the door, and looked back at Sans. "Oh, Sansy. Try not to nap too late, you wouldn't want to be late for work. The boss was _so_ annoyed last time." 

With that, the two left. Sans stared after them, then sighed, deflated. "Not that simple, Mett..." 

He walked right past Aster, apparently not seeing her this time. He started walking purposefully towards the back door. Curious, Aster followed as best she could. She could vaguely see her body flicker in and out of sight, barely visible even to her. "No wonder no one saw me..." 

Sans headed into the backyard, towards a large shed there. Aster followed as close as she could, not wanting to go through stuff if she didn't have to. She wondered if doing that earlier was why she felt so weak now. 

Sans looked to the side before unlocking the shed and heading in. "Locked? That's odd..." Aster said, following him inside.

When she stepped into the shed, she suddenly stopped. The walls of the shed were covered in papers, and these papers were covered in writings in different colors, lines connecting different pages, and mathematical equations Aster didn't recognize. It looked like the ravings of a conspiracy theorist, if not a madman. 

Aster walked up to one wall and started looking at an article covered in notes. One note caught her eye, "There's a noticeable hole in the article, which the editor couldn't explain." Aster started reading the article itself, and suddenly gasped. She recognized this! 

It was her father's obituary, from so many years ago. She had read it many times before, so she scanned it for the "hole" Sans had mentioned. She soon saw it. 

“... left a wife, Marigold Verdan, and # children:       “Wing”       ,  Sansevieria “Sans” Verdan, and Papyrus “Pap” Verdan.

She looked at  the other papers, trying to see what they were. She recognized a few: school listings, a community article, her mother’s obituary. And in  every one, her name was missing, leaving either a hole or scribbles behind.  


Aster, dazed, looked around the whole room. "There's... there's... so many of them... and in every one... I'm... erased..." 

She finally shook her head and looked at Sans. He was leaning over a thick book. Aster stood behind him, looking at it. Covering the page was complicated calculations, but Aster finally recognized some of them. It was back when Sans and her had talked about quantum mechanics as kids. She didn't know what it meant, but she could figure it out. 

Sans knew she had "vanished" and was trying to figure out why and how. 

Aster buried her head in her hands. "Sans, you IDIOT. Don't try and figure this out, I don't even know what's going on. You'll drive yourself mad..." 

She realized something, and took a closer look at Sans. He looked... horrible. His hair was matted down and dirty, his skin waxy and white, his clothes several days old. Dark circles were under both eyes, eyes which looked glassy and sick. 

"No no no, don't do this Sans, this is my role..." Aster muttered. She remembered looking exactly like this after her mother died, sick and without hope. Sans wasn't suppose to do this, he was suppose to be happy... 

Aster put her hand on Sans' shoulder without thinking, and to her surprise it didn't faze through. Sans snapped her head up and looked directly at Aster. "As... ast... no, Wing. Is that really you?" 

_He must remember me vanishing last time he said my name,_  Aster thought. Out loud she said, “Yes Sans, it’s me.”

Sans just stared at her blankly. Aster realized that she still couldn't speak- maybe it was a ghost thing? She thought, and got an idea. As kids, they had learned sigh language, so they could talk without disturbing their mother. Maybe Sans could see that? 

She quickly signed "Yes, it's me Sans." 

Sans started shaking, and slowly sighed back, “What happened to you?”  


“I... fell into the Void...” Aster sighed back. She didn’t know _what_  call that place, but the ‘Void’ seemed most appropriate.  


“Why- why are you back? Now? Why did you vanish... Aster, it’s been fifteen years... Wait, no, come back-!” Sans said frantically, as Aster once again vanished in front of him.  


Aster fell into the void, nearly hyperventilating. She tried to contact the Leader, desperate for answers. When she could feel his presence, she asked, "Why can no one remember me? Why does nothing mention me? What, was I erased from history...? And fifteen years? WHY WAS I GONE THAT LONG?!" she cried.

"Calm down, Aster, or you'll break the link. I can't talk to you when you're this emotional," Leader replied.

Aster gulped a breath she couldn't take and tried to calm herself down. Slower this time, she asked, "Why was I erased?" 

The leader was quiet for a moment, and Aster could feel sadness come off of him. "It's... an effect of the void... nothing here truly exists. We souls can still survive, but only outside of space-time itself." 

Aster reminded herself to figure out what that meant later. "Why... didn't... you warn me. I never... I never would have done this if..." 

The leader was surprised. "You would choose annihilation over being forgotten?" 

"I'm not afraid to die! At least dead I would be remembered..." 

"No, you do not understand. You would not have died, if the monsters took you. Your very soul would have been consumed. If you retained any existence, any sense of self, it would have been as a monster like them." 

Aster never considered that the leader may lie to her. She could sense his emotions, the workings of his mind. She could tell if he told a falsehood. And though most of what he just said was true, something was wrong. 

"They're not monsters," she said. 

The leader seemed surprised. "What?" 

Aster took a deep, non-existent breathe and continued. "You. You do not think of them as monsters. I do not know what exactly you think of them... but that was false. Wrong. They're not monsters." 

"...they are monsters. But not in the way you understand what a monster is. That is the discrepancy." 

Aster could tell he was hiding something, but she didn't push it. He had a right to secrets. 

She continued on a different note. "So I had the choice of being annihilated and remembered or turned into a ghost and erased?" 

"A pure soul, and no. If your soul was consumed, you would have been forgotten. Perhaps not erased from history itself, but no one would be able to remember you." 

"And option return-to-my-world-unharmed wasn’t real?" 

The leader seemed uncomfortable. "You... did not know how. I am still not sure how you go back there. Most trapped here are just that, trapped. If you had ever figured out how to do so, you could have returned whole." 

Aster sighed. She still did not understand how she went back and forth, but knew it was tied to her emotions somehow. And she hadn't wanted to leave, not for a long time. But something caught her attention. "Others? What others?" 

The leader ignored her question. "The time you spend here does not go by freely. If you wish to see your brothers again, I suggest you leave soon." 

"How did-" Aster started, but cut off. It didn't matter. 

She needed to see Sans again, see what happened. She if she could help him... 

Aster was supposed to be the screwed-up sibling, not Sans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in this story, (G)Aster is the older sibling to Sans and Papyrus, not their parent or creator. 
> 
> Also. Aster, Sans(evieria) and Papyrus are simultaneously plant and font names, a connection I find highly amusing, considering they're usually skeletons.
> 
> Oh, here's a picture of what Aster looks like now: https://65.media.tumblr.com/4e03a764794bae1242c8afa120f33473/tumblr_odg6c9n7x51vd9svio1_540.jpg
> 
> http://welcometomyvoidrealm.tumblr.com


	5. Better Off Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster goes back to talk to Sans, and starts to find out exactly what the consequences of her decisions were. Can she figure out how to solve this dilemma, or will she just continue to make things worse?

Aster quieted her mind and tried to remember just how she had appeared back home in the first place. She couldn’t remember that time at all, her memory was engulfed in darkness. But slowly, she recalled.

She had wanted to see her brothers again. She had wanted to _return_. When she first vanished, it was because she wanted to disappear. These thoughts- leaving and returning- seem to control the shift. 

She focused on returning, but also on returning in time. Before, she had come back years later. She did not wish to make such an error again. She did not know if time was moving lineally between worlds, but she doubted it. How could she had been in the Void for years?

Slowly, she faded away from the void and conscious thought, everything gone except the solitary thought of return. But soon she started to hear noises. With a heavy heart, she recognized voices- raised voices.

[[MORE]]

“Sans, I thought we _discussed_  this before I left. You were three hours late for your shift! Your boss was _so_  unhappy when he called. My position can only keep you safe for so long,” Mett said.  


Papyrus added, “Sans, you lazybones, you could have just asked me to wake you up on time! You know I can be relied upon!”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Sans said, his voice oddly strained. “I was working.”

Met scoffed. “Well, _obviously_  you weren’t, since you were late.”

“I was working on something else, Mettaton,” Sans said. Aster perked up her ears at the mention of Mett’s full name- it was a strange one.  


She could barely see the room, everything was in blurry shapes. She wondered if Sans could see her, and hoped he couldn’t. That would only make this worse...

“Oh? _Do_  fill me in. What is this secret project?” asked Mett.  


“Brother is always working in the shed, Mett! Working on his top-secret spacey stuff!” Pap interjected.  


“Just like Pap said. What I do is out of this world,” Sans said.  


“Well, soon you will be out of a _job_ if you keep this up. _Honestly,_  can’t you just work during the day?” Mett asked.  


“Nah bro, I’m sleeping then.”  


“Nyeh, if you just  worked out more you wouldn’t be so tired all the time!” Pap said, exasperated.   


Mett face palmed. “ _Look_  Sans, I can command quite a bit of respect, but I cannot keep on covering for you if you insist on not trying. You need to choose: your hobby, or your job.”

“That’s rather a _weighty_ question, metta _ton_. You’re putting me under a lot of _press_ ure. I’ll have to _toss_  the idea around.”  


Both Papyrus and Mettaton let out identical groans. Aster smiled briefly, but quickly her expression became one of concern. Sans... had always slacked off to a degree, but outright missing work? That was new.

Sans turned around and his eyes grew huge. With dismay Aster realized she had been spotted, again. Slowly, she signed, “Let’s talk elsewhere.”

“Su-sure” Sans said, which attracted Pap’s attention.

“Who are you talking to, Sans?”  


“Oh, no one bro,” Sans said quickly.  


Mett frowned. “Sans, lying does not become you. Who were you speaking to?”

“No _body,”_ Sans said. “Wasn’t anything but a _ghost_ of a thought.”  


Mett frowned. “Sans,” he started, but Sans waved his hand.

“I’ve gotta check up on something Mett,” he said, and walked away. Behind him, Mett gave an exasperated sigh.

 Aster started to follow Sans, but couldn’t help hearing Mett saying, “Something needs to give. I can’t let him continue this charade.”

Sans walked upstairs to his room, and Aster followed. The room... was a trash heap. Dirty laundry and plates littered the floors, and everything was covered in a layer of grime or dust, Aster couldn’t tell which. Oddly enough, the bed seem unused. The sheets were balled up for some reason, but it didn’t look slept in. 

Sans turned around and said, “Okay, specter, what do you want?”

“Thanks bro,” Aster signed, annoyed. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”  


“Ha, good joke. You disappear for years, and now you come back? What, finally remembered we existed?” Sans asked.   


Aster recoiled. “I didn’t mean to!” she signed frantically. “I didn’t know how much time had passed!”

“Besides, why do you care so much? Isn’t your life easier without me?” she asked, slower this time.  


“You saw,” Sans said, motioning towards downstairs. “Does it _look_ easier?”  


“About that. Why exactly are you ruining your life looking for me?”  


“What-! You’re _seriously_ asking that?”   


“Yes!” Aster signed. “Why do I matter to you at all? We parted years ago.”  


Sans started trembling. “You... you really... after all that happened, you really don’t understand? Did you EVER think about what disappearing would do to me? To Pap?”

“I... I figured... you would be glad I was gone... all I ever did was cause you trouble. Make things worse. And Pap would barely remember me anyways. He was, what, seven when we split up?  Besides, you and Pap were in your foster home, all happy without me. I was getting shuffled from house to house, making it harder for you guys to ever get adopted or stay in one place. “Oh, you’re related to Wing? I’ve heard of that demon. No, I don’t want that kind of trouble.” My leaving... wouldn’t that give you a better chance at a happy life?” Aster finished, seeing Sans get angrier at every word, but not interrupting. 

When she finished, he said slowly, “And what happened to you taking care of us at 18?” he asked. “What happened to staying together as a family? You know _how much_ Pap talked about that? How I always had to reassure him that we would never part? That he just had to wait two years, and then we’d be together again. Then you vanished, and what could I say? “Hey Pap, we’ll stay together for another four years _for sure_ and I’ll take care of you.” Despite barely being able to take care of myself?”

Aster just stared. “I... I _never_ knew you guys wanted me to take care of you. I thought you guys wanted to get picked up by a real family...”

“We ARE a real family you bonehead! Until you vanished and left me alone!”

“You have Pap”  


“Ya, now I do. You know, we did get split up for a bit? Until I turned 18 and could take him. Ya. Four years was too long.”  


“I’m sorry...” Aster futilely signed, but Sans cut her off.  


“I’m sure you are. And you know what? When Pap came back? He barely remember our parents. He didn’t remember _you_. He... he... I couldn’t parent him. He didn’t want me to. I was just his lazy brother. A burden... I couldn’t live up to his foster family.”  


Aster shrank back into herself. She... she had never considered that Pap and Sans would _ever_ be separated. That... that Pap would ever do anything but idolize Sans like he always did. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know... I never thought...”  


“Ya, that’s just your problem,” Sans said bitterly. “You never _do_ think. You just run off and do whatever, and leave me to pick up the pieces.”  


Aster signed. “I know, I know. And I am sorry. But Sans... you need to stop this. You need to move on.”

“Move on? MOVE ON? Easy for you to say! You’ve never lost anything!”  


“I’ve-!” Aster shouted, not thinking. “I’ve lost EVERYTHING! I lost _YOU!_ You got to keep Pap, I didn’t have ANYONE!”  


Sans flinched back, not hearing but seeing how furious Aster was.

But before he could say anything, Papyrus opened the door. “Sans? Are you okay? I heard shouting.”

Sans couldn’t recover fast enough. He quickly tried to look normal, and said, “Sure Pap, I was just talking to someone on the phone.”

“You’re not holding a phone, Sans.”  


“Oh? Aheh... it was a bluetooth phone.”  


“Sans,” Pap said, chiding, “Don’t lie to me. You know better than to lie to the great Papyrus.”  


Sans flinched again, as did Aster. Since when did Pap... parent Sans? This was all wrong.

“It was nothing bro. Nothing to worry about.”  


“Hmm... if you insist. I do wish you would tell me what is wrong though.”  


“Nothing’s wrong...”  


Pap sighed. “Maybe Mett is right...” he muttered, though even a mutter from Pap is fairly loud.  


Sans started forward. “Hey, hold on there. What is Mett right about?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about,” Pap said, and Sans flinched again.  


“Pap...” he started, but Pap cut him off.  


“I’m going to make lunch if you want to help me. Maybe your invisible friend can come to?” he said, and walked out.  


“Sans...” Aster started to sign, but Sans just glared at her.   


“Go... away...Aster” he hissed, and Aster felt herself once again fading away.  


Back in the void she screamed, “Oh come on that isn’t fair!”

She wanted to curl up in a ball and just sit, but she couldn’t. She was a soul- formless, voiceless, hopeless. She could only exist.

“Maybe I should just stay here...” she muttered. “But Sans won’t quit. Why? Why is he doing this? STILL doing this? What’s the point? Ruining his life won’t bring me back...”  


Aster stayed for awhile, not thinking. Eventually, she stirred. “I need to try again. Just get her to move on, to not think of me anymore. If I can just do that... I can’t go back, I can’t take care of Sans. I can’t even get Pap to see me! What... what else can I do?”

She signed. “I always thought it would be better if I vanished. I never dreamed all of this would happen... I never thought... Sans is right, I never _do_  think about the consequences... if I could only go back... but what use would that be? I don’t have a body, I can’t take vanished-me’s place.”

“Ugh, why did Sans remember me at all?! It would be better off if he just forgot me. I need to get him to see that. What else can we do?”  


With that thought in mind, she focused again on returning, this time to Sans alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Better Off Forgotten" is actually another Gaster story here on Ao3, written by askull4everyoccasion. Highly recommend all his works.
> 
> Hopefully I didn't butcher Mettaton's character too much- or the brothers for that matter. They do act a little OOC but I tried to give a decent reason for it- different circumstances have changed their personalities. 
> 
> Just so it's clear, Aster was 14, Sans was 12, and Pap was 7 when they all got placed in foster care, and Aster was 16 when she disappeared. 
> 
> http://welcometomyvoidrealm.tumblr.com/


	6. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems like Aster's worst nightmare is coming true, and not just her's at that.

When Aster tried to go back, she found she couldn't manage to. Every time she tried to appear back in reality, she would fade away a second later. She could hear voices occasionally, exclamations of surprise. But nothing else.

It was starting to worry her that she couldn’t go back. What if she never returned? 

But part of her didn’t want to return. Part of her wanted to run away from her mistakes and never go back. She tried to overcome it, but kept failing.

Eventually, she steeled herself with the thought. “Sans won’t get better unless I can get back.” She didn’t know if this was true, she just hoped so. She hoped desperately that returning would solve problems, not create more...

When she faded back in, it was night. She could hear... crying and laughing. She almost faded right back out again, but forced herself to see what was wrong.

She saw Sans on the floor, bottle in hand, a few scattered around the room. He looked... terrible. Like he had been drinking all night. Sans had his eyes closed at first, but when he opened them and saw Aster, he started to laugh hysterically.

“There you are! Reappeared again, but now it doesn’t matter! Like it ever did! I ruin my life for you, and you don’t even _care_!” He started laughing uncontrollably, laughing and crying at the same time.

Aster started to reply when the sound of pounding feet reached her ears. “Sans?” Papyrus called, “What’s wrong?”

“No no no no...” Aster whispered, but it was no good. Pap came over and found his brother, crying and still laughing.

“Sans! What is wrong?” Pap asked, squatting down in front of his brother.

“Her...” Sans said, pointing at Aster. Papyrus turned, confusion on his face.

“Sans... there’s nobody there...”

“Exactly! There’s nobody! There never was anybody! Always never was the person we knew as the sister that we lost but you never knew, you always never knew” Sans rambled on. Papyrus looked more and more confused with every word, and eventually reached out to take Sans’ shoulders.

“Sans, I can’t understand you. What are you talking about? ...is this about your project...?”

Sans started laughing hysterically. “Project! Looking for someone who never existed, trying to bring them back! When they they they just left never cared! Left me alone alone always alone...”

“I _did_  care you idiot, I do care! Sans, please, talk to me!” Aster shouted, signing along and hoping Sans would see it. 

“Sans, you are not alone,” Papyrus said firmly. “You’re not! You have me!”

“Ha, ha, a brother who is ashamed of me? Thinks of me as a burden, a puzzle to be solved? Who, who, who rather be with his  _boy_  than me?”

“Sans...” Pap said, frowning. “That isn’t fair. I’ve never thought of you as anything other than my older brother. Why do you think this? Is it about the job? I want you to work so you have something to care about, to strive for. Like me!”

“I... I did have something,” Sans said shakily, but cut off.

“What? What is it. _Tell me_  Sans. Please, just tell me, for once.”

“O-okay bro. What... what do you remember of our family?”

“Nyeh? Our family?” Papyrus asked, confused. He looked off into the distance before replying, “...not much. I remember playing with Mom and you, some silly board game... going to the park... eating dinner... just little scrap. They.... I was pretty young Sans.”

“Just me and you and our parents? Are you sure?”

“Nyeh... yeh... I think so...” Papyrus concentrated hard, his brow furrowed. 

“You don’t remember another person? A sister? Older than me, took care of us after Dad died?”

“No... Sans... we don’t have a sister... you’ve... how much have you had to drink?” Pap asked, worry creasing his face.

Sans leaned back, his head hitting the counter wall behind him. "There’s no point. If you can’t... there’s no point... they’re no point at all...”

“Sans? Sans!” Papyrus shouted, shaking Sans, who didn’t respond. His head rolled around, but his eyes stayed closed. Aster wasn’t sure if he was unconscious or just ignoring them, but feared either option.

Papyrus kept shaking Sans, getting more distressed. He stopped, and picked up the bottle Sans had. “How many of these-?” He started, then got up and started collecting bottles. Aster started to feel sick as she saw him do this- there were at least five empty bottles, and not beer bottles at that. Sans had always been a sickly person... that much alcohol... 

Papyrus evidently agreed, because after he picked up a certain bottle he shouted, “Mettaton! Mettaton! It’s Sans- we need to get him to the hospital!”

“What happened now darling?” Mett shouted back. “Did he fall down the stairs again?” 

Mett slowly came down the stairs himself, trying to manipulate one of his prosthetic arms on. “Darling, can you help me with this?”

“Wha? Sure,” Pap said, going over to him. With practiced ease he fitted the arm in place. Mett had evidently left his other arm upstairs.

“Now, let’s hurry! I’ll drive us” Pap said, striding over to Sans.

“Papyrus. slow down, what happened?” Mett asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he looked around and frowned.

“ _Don’t_ tell me he drank himself into a coma _again_. Really Pap, he needs to stop this.”

“We need to get him help,” Pap said firmly, picking up his brother with ease. He strode towards the door, while Mett sighed and called someone.

“My driver will be here in a minute,” he said.

Pap nodded, and walked outside. Mett sighed again and followed, muttering to himself, “I’m not sure how much longer I can allow this...”

Aster watched the scene with a leaded heart. She... hadn’t thought that her disappearance would cause Sans _this_  much turmoil... and appearing again seems to have only made everything worse. 

She bit her non-existent fingernails, trying to think of what to do. All she could think of was trying to talk to Sans once he was coherent, and try to convince him to drop his “project.” Seeing her last time seemed to have made him worse... but what else could she do, when no one else could see her?

Aster walked after them, but when she exited the building they were already gone. _Okay, every time I reappear I’m near Sans... maybe if I fade away for a second?_  she thought, fading once again out of existence.

She could hear voices droning on, though she couldn’t make out the words. Hospital sounds, beeps and paging and other noises greeted her ears. She shuttered, almost faded out completely before willing herself to stay. She tried to hear Sans’ voice, but it was a long time before he made any sound.

She faded back in completely, and saw Sans lying on a hospital bed, tossing a ball in the air. It was night again, and the rest of the hospital seemed quiet. Aster looked around, but she didn’t see Pap or Mett anywhere. Why weren’t they there with Sans? 

She was about to walk into the hallway to look for them when Sans noticed her and signed, “What do you want?”

“I... I wanted to make sure you were okay...” Aster replied, signing shakily.

“Little late for that, don’t ya think?” Sans signed, anger written on his face.

Aster flinched. “I didn’t mean to take so long! Ever! I... can’t really control the timing of my reappearing...”

“The void has a dilation effect on space-time with an different conversion rate depending on the particular universe it is interacting with,” Sans signed, looking almost bored. “But unless the rate was 15 years to one minute, you still took too long coming back.”

“I thought I could return and no time would have passed, like in stories,” Aster signed, head hanging.

“This is reality, Wing, not a story,” Sans signed. “Did you really think it would be that easy?”

“Yes.”

Sans sighed, and leaned back against his pillow. “You... are... an... idiot.” He said softly. He then signed, “And disappearing from reality? Did you know that would happen?”

“Um... sorta...” Aster signed. Sans sat up, eyes blazing, but Aster quickly continued, “It was either I disappeared or my soul was destroyed.”

“You should have been destroyed. At least then you wouldn’t have ruined my life,” Sans signed jerkily.

Aster shrunk down, and replied, “I... know... I should have just vanished... that’s all I wanted to do, Sans, I just wanted to disappear... I had no idea... that it would hurt you so much...”

“I had just lost my father, my mother, and my sister. My brother got taken from me not a year after you left. I lost everything, Wing. And I thought,” he started chuckling, but it sounded more like sobbing, “that you... you needed me help. You needed me to _rescue_  you. That... I couldn’t help Pap, but maybe, I could do something right? Maybe save _one_  member of my lost family? But you never needed any help. You just... left us... of your own free will.”

He dropped his hands, and said quietly, “I... just wanted to have _some_  part of my life not be destroyed... ha... fat chance, huh? What a joke.”

Aster sat, too guilty to speak. But after a minute, she slowly signed, “I’m sorry Sans. I’m really, really, sorry. I wish I could fix it... God I wish I could fix it somehow... but... you don’t have to look anymore. You can go, live your life-”

Sans interrupted her. “What life? What do I have left? My bro is so wrapped up in that celebrity he barely talks to me. I got fired from my job because I’m always so tired. And now my project, the thing I’m lost everything for, is utterly pointless.”

“I... I don’t know much about Pap,” Aster signed, “But your research doesn’t have to go to waste. Discovering a new dimension, time-space stuff, that’s got to be useful! You could write a paper about it-”

Sans interrupted her. “What’s would be the point?! Nothing matters anymore...”

“See, it’s that attitude that got you fired _darling,”_ Mettaton said, waltzing into the room. Aster stood up, shocked.

“How long were you there...?” Sans asked, worried.

“Oh, the _whole_  time darling. It’s nice to finally hear the reason _why_  you’ve been so despondent. Especially since you never trusted _us_  enough to tell us,” Mett replied, folding his arms in front of him.

“I- it’s not like that Mett...” Sans started, but trailed off.

“Oh? Then tell me, _what_  is it like? Why do you feel like you can’t talk to us, but you can talk to the ghost of your long-gone sister?”

Sans and Aster both started, surprised. “Wha- you knew?” Sans asked.

Mett rolled his eyes. “I _have_  been in that shed of your’s, you know. Pap showed it to me _ages_  ago. It seemed obvious what you were looking for. And then she shows up yesterday,” Mett said, motioning towards Aster, who just stared at him, “and you fall to pieces. But _still_  you refuse to talk to me.”

“I- I thought you would think I was insane...” Sans said quietly.

Mett rolled his eyes again. “Darling, do you _really_  think so little of me? After all I’ve done for you?”

“Oh, get me a job I hated just so I would be out of your hair?” Sans shot back. 

Mett inhaled sharply, and said, “I wanted you to do _something_  besides sit around moping all day. That is hardly healthy behavior you know. I didn’t want to see my love’s brother spiral into suicidal despair. _So sorry_  if you rather waste away into nothing instead of make something of yourself.” He moved towards the door, and motioned for Aster to follow him as he walked out. Aster looked between Mett and a shocked Sans, before deciding to follow the star.

Out in the hallway, Mett faced Aster. Preempting her question, he said, “I have always been able to see ghosts and other spirits. Sans should know that, but I suppose he forgot. Anways. _What_  are you doing back here?”

“I wanted to see if Sans was okay,” Aster signed. 

Mett furrowed his brow, muttering, “ASL, huh? Been awhile since I saw that...” Louder, he said, “Sign slowly, I know the language but am a little out of practice.”

He contained, “My dear, it would seem your appearances are making things _worse_ , not better. Surely you realized this?”

Aster lower her head, and slowly signed, “I was hoping I could convince Sans to move on with his life...”

Mett humphed. “A noble aspiration, one I have tried to instill for years to no effect. What made you think just showing up one day with a pithy little speech would do anything? This isn’t a show darling.”

Aster sighed, irritated, and signed, “ _I know that_ , but I had to try _something!”_

Mett hummed. “May I suggest something?”

“What?”

“Leave.” Mett said curtly. 

Aster replied shakily, “What?”

“Your presence seems to cause Sans nothing but grief. You have spoken to him, apparently quelled his interest in that project of his. It would be best if you simply left. Maybe without you around he will actually forget about you.”

“But... but...” Aster sighed, “isn’t forgetting me what’s been troubling him...?”

Mett sighed. “I think not knowing whether or not you _existed_  is what was bothering him. Now he knows. You're not needed anymore.”

“But I want to help him!” Aster signed frantically.

Mett may not have understood the signs, but he recognized the look on her face. “And what could a child like you do to help him, that myself or Pap couldn’t do? Girl, if you wanted to help him, you would have showed up years ago.”

“That’s... not true...” Aster signed, but Mett wasn’t looking at her anymore.

“If you insist on staying, I can hardly stop you,” he said. “But understand that you only hurt Sans more if you do. It would be for the best if you just... disappeared. For good this time.” With those words, Mett walked away, leaving Aster crumbled on the floor.

“i... i... can’t even get this right... maybe .... is mett right? is it better... if i just... disappearing is what i meant to do...  maybe its better.... if i just never existed ... if i just go away... all i do.... cause problems... i cant... every time i try.... and san.... oh god san.... im sorry.... im sorry... i never meant... i never wanted to hurt you.... maybe i should... just disappear entirely? maybe that would be better... if i had never existed... 

“if i cant fix anything... maybe at least i can erase myself from his mind... “

With that thought, Aster faded back into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned that I'm bad at writing characters? I hope everyone didn't turn out too OOC...


	7. An Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster just wants to disappear, but is distracted when she runs into someone else in the void.

Aster stayed faded away, submerged within the void, for eons. All she wanted to do was disappear from everything... 

 Slowly she realized that she couldn’t vanish like this, she had to be consumed. She resolved to find the monsters who terrorized herself before... and offer herself to them. Maybe the sad one she had seen earlier, he seemed like he needed something to cheer him up.

She whispered to herself, “Time to finish the job I started years ago... but this time, no screws up...”

With this thought, she pulled herself up from the void gel. With dull surprise, she noticed she actually had a body this time, made of the same goop that made the floor. It looked like her ghost had on Earth, only duller now. She idly wondered if she could change the look, but couldn’t summon the will to care.

She wondered why she had a body now, but figured it was because of her desire to fade away, to become nothing, just as the void was nothing. All her weird abilities seemed to be emotions tied... 

“Good thing I don’t need any positive emotions this time...” she muttered, and started walking. 

After awhile, she realized she wouldn’t be able to see the creatures against the darkness of the void, even if she could find them. She needed her light back.

Aster closed her eyes and concentrated on summoning the skull she had used before, on drawing out that strange power. Once again, her chest started to burn, though it was much less painful this time. Her heart still hurt, but her body didn’t react like it had before. _Strange. I wonder what this power is, and why it hurt my human body...?_

Slowly, the skull took form, looking less cartoonish than before. It glowed brightly, most of the light coming from it’s yawning mouth. It’s eyes, oddly enough, seemed almost black. “Curious...” Aster muttered, but she simply turned aside and started walking. 

After hours- Aster idly wondered if it had really been days or weeks- something changed. Aster could see something... white... on the ground. “White? What’s this?”

She swung around and started walking towards the thing. She keeled down, and picked up the object. She realized that she was holding a piece of bone, part of an arm or leg. “Now how did _this_  get here?” Aster said. She squinted at it, then willed the skull to shine it’s light on the bone piece.

The second the beam of light hit the bone, a scream reverberated from every corner of the void, ripping through Aster.

She immediately dropped the bone, clasping her hands over her ears. When the screams quieted, so called out “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you! Are you okay?” 

A soft sobbing noise came from all around her, many voices all speaking as one. She heard them make a gasping noise,  then the voices said, “Don’t do that again...”

“I’m sorry,” Aster said, “I didn’t know that would hurt you. I was just trying to see better...”

“See? With a magic blast?”

“Magic?” Aster asked, “That was magic?”

“You don’t know?!” The voice shouted, and Aster clasped her hands on her ears, but it had no effect at all. _Downside to a goop body, I suppose_ , she thought.

“N-no! I don’t even know how I can summon this skull thing-”

The voice cut her off. “Skull thing?”

“It’s a skull that emits light, and can shoot a beam of light out of it’s mouth,” Aster explained.

“That’s not light, that’s magic. How can you do magic and not know it...?” the voice asked itself.

Aster replied anyways. “I don’t know. Humans aren’t suppose to be able to do magic...”

“You’re human?” the voice asked sharply.

“Y-yes? Is that a problem?”

“After all your kind has done to me-!” it shouted back.

 Aster futilely covered her ears again, and yelled, “My kind? What are you talking about?!”

“The war! The damn war of extermination! When you humans tried to kill all us monsters!”

“Monsters? You’re a monster?” Aster asked, curious.

“ _Yes_. I’m a skeleton, what did you think I was?”

“I didn’t know! I just picked up a random bone and then voices from all around me start talking. How was I suppose to know?!”

“Humph. Well, know you know. And you know that we are enemies.”

“Look, whoever you are, I haven’t heard of any war. Where I come from, monsters like you? Living skeletons? Don’t exist. _Never_  existed as far as I know. They’re suppose to be myths, scary stories for children!”

“You _forgot?!_ You’re kind forgot?!”

Aster shouted back as loud as she could, “STOP YELLING AT ME!” Her voice cracked, and sounded almost more like static than a voice.

She heard the voice hiss, than quietly reply, “Fine. I will talk civilly. Answer my question, human: did your kind forget the war?”

“The name’s Aster-”

“Gaster?” the voice replied, surprise clear in his tone.

“No, Aster, like the flower. Aster ‘Wing’ Verdan.”

“That’s... that’s not... how can...?” the voice muttered on.

Curious, Aster asked, “What’s your name?”

“...Gaster. Wingding Gaster.”

Now it was Aster’s turn to be surprised. “That... that can’t be a coincidence...”

“The names are not the same... but your blaster...”

“Blaster?” Aster asked.

“The skull. It shoots a beam of raw magic. I’ve been hit by my own blasts before, the impression is unmistakable. It’s a Blaster.”

“...Huh,” Aster said. “So we have similar names, similar magic styles, are both in the Void...yep, no, that’s not a coincidence.”

“It is not very probable,” Gaster mused. “But I wonder how...”

“Maybe we’re alternate-universe versions of each other? That would explain the war thing.” Aster suggested.

“...the ‘war thing’ as you call it probably still occurred in your world, and your kind has elected to forget about it. Typical humans.”

“Hey, you don’t know that. For all you know, I come from a monster-less world in the first place,” Aster shot back.

Gaster was silent for a minute, then said, “This is pointless discourse. And if we are to be stuck here we may as well not argue.”

“Well, I’m no stuck here, but I agree, arguing would be-”

“Wait, you can leave this place?!” Gaster shouted again. Aster winced and growled at him.

“ _Yes_ , I can leave. I suppose you could too if your body wasn’t in a million pieces.”

“...I do have teleportation magic...” Gaster mused. “Though I hesitate to try it as just a skull.”

He was silent for a minute, then asked, “I don’t suppose you know healing magic?”

“I wouldn’t know if I did or didn’t, I know nothing about magic.”

“Hmm. Well, you can summon a Blaster. If your’s works similarly to mine, it might tell us something. What color are the eyes?”

“The eyes?” Amaya asked, before peering at the eyeholes again. “They’re dark teal, I would say. They looked a bit blacker earlier but have lightened up again.”

“Teal... teal... interesting... and you said dark, correct?” Gaster asked himself, before speaking on. “It sounds like you have a soul between integrity and kindness, interesting.”

“Soul? What do you mean?”

“The Blasters channel the raw magic of a person’s soul, and as a result the color of the soul is reflected in their eyes,” he explained.

“So... teal. What does that mean power-wise?”

“Well, kindness magic- the green- can heal. Integrity- the dark blue part- is strange. It literally is the manipulation of the “true self”  of a person, and can be used to shift someone’s personal gravity to controlling their minds. It really depends on the specific monst- er, soul, and other dominate traits.”

“Kindness?” Aster scoffed. “You must have it wrong. I’m not exactly know for being kind. More for being an antisocial jerk.”

“Whether or not you stay true to your soul is your own affair, but that is what the color means. It also means you have a form of healing magic, though what specifically I am not sure.”

“Well, if blue is integrity, maybe it’s a kind of restoration magic? You know, healing or restoring something to it’s true state?” Aster suggested.

“Hmm... could be. But to use it you’d need all the pieces of a item... or me in this case.”

“Okay, so scavenger hunt time for all the bones. May as well start now,” Aster said, standing up.

“Wait! You can’t just wander around the void hoping to run into me...”

“Well, I your voice is coming from your various bone pieces, I think. I’ll just follow the sound of that.”

“It is?” Gaster asked.  
  


“ _Yes._ Your voice sounds like it’s coming from all around me.”

“Hmm. I suppose I need to keep talking for you to find me, then?”

“That would be helpful, yes.”

Gaster sighed. “What do you want to talk about?”

Aster paused, then asked, “Well... could you teach me more about magic?”

Gaster paused, then said “It would be difficult without you in front of me... but yes, I think I could teach you.“

And so they went, Gaster teaching Aster while she searched for his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Bones, nice to finally have you in the story. Time for a proper Gaster to come in and explain everything like the scientist he is. 
> 
> Magic and soul headcanons partially explained here. If you want to see a full post of which magic does what in my story, see this: http://welcometomyvoidrealm.tumblr.com/post/150410455034/soul-colors-and-what-they-mean-in-terms-of-magic
> 
> You don't need to read it to understand anything, I'll explain the magic combinations when they come up. It's just sorta an extra behind-the-scenes sort of thing.


	8. Why?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaster and Aster walk along and ask many questions. But will they get any answers?

Aster walked and walked, listening to Gaster teach her everything from magic to quantum physics. She suspected that they had to have traveling for days in order for him talk that much, though it didn't much bother her. She periodically converted the information she received into grey pieces of void-paper so she wouldn't forget anything, and stored those pieces inside her "shirt."

She ran into Gaster's skull fairly early on in the search, since it was the loudest piece of him. She could see his soul sitting inside the skull- a strange grey heart. "Why do souls look so...cartoony?" Aster asked.

"How should I know?" Gaster replied grumpily, his jaw moving slightly as he talked.

Aster looked closer at the skull, and saw two thin cracks in it- the same ones she had. “How did you get these cracks?” she asked sharply.

“The war, Miss Nosy. How did you get yours?”

“...I have no idea. They just showed up.”

“Humph. Typical.”

Gaster’s moving jaw made holding him while he talked a little difficult, so Aster soon perched him on top of her 'Blaster', which she made lie lengthwise. Gaster fell off it a few times, but it worked out fairly well.

Gaster eventually figured out how to manipulate the Blaster for himself. “It’s just like mine, though normally monsters cannot manipulate another’s magic. It’s probable that our similar souls allows me to do this,” he explained. Aster just shrugged- it didn’t matter. After this, he led the way, sensing where the missing bones were, though occasionally he couldn't figure out where to go and they had to pick a random direction to walk in.

Aster walked behind him, eventually making a “bag” out of the void goop to carry the bone fragments in. Gaster was uneasy about this, but Aster pointed out that the goop hadn’t eaten him yet, and anyways, she couldn’t carry all of him, so he relented.

By this point Gaster had talked himself out, so they walked in silence. This only allowed Aster’s mind to come fully online and start questioning what she was doing- and what happened to her plan.

 

 

 

“You were going to fix everything, remember?” a voice asked.

“Ya... well, I can still do it later, you know,” Aster retorted.

“Sliding out of helping people again, how typical. Do you _ever_ do anything to help people?”

“What do you think I’m doing now?! I’m trying to help Gaster!”

“Yes, a stranger who you nothing about. He could be an axe-murderer for all you know, and your helping him. Anyone who ends up here deserves their fate.”

“From the sounds of it he got blown into here by a freak explosion.”

"What kind of explosion _blows you out of existence?_ What kind of bald-faced lie is that?”

“We don’t know if he’s lying...”

“We don’t know if he’s telling the _truth_ either.”

“Ya, and we _can’t_ know, so this is pointless. I’m helping him.”

“And what if you get back- even assuming you can- and he ends up being evil? Then it would be your fault if anything bad happened.”

“... I can always stop him...”

“How? As a stupid ghost? Your pathetic- worthless! How would you fix anything? _WHEN_ have you ever fixed anything?”

“Shut up.”

“And what about Sans, huh? Do you really hate him so much? I know you used to. He was so annoying, always pulling pranks, never taking anything seriously. Leaving all the work to you. You’re probably _glad_ he’s miserable now!”

“Shut up!”

“Or are you just such a selfish bitch you don’t want to be destroyed, even if it would save him?”

“...”

“Pff. You really are a coward. You always were. You’ve _never_ been able to do what was necessary to save others, always chickened out. Just think of your poor mother. If you had only followed through, she would still be alive. I bet you’re _glad_ you killed her-”

“SHUT UP!” Aster shouted, out loud this time, hitting her head as hard as she could. But her hand just went through her head, causing no pain. Aster sank to the ground, clutching her head. “Shut up shut up shut up” she muttered, unaware of her actions.

Gaster said “I wasn’t talking...” and turned around to face her. When he saw her curled up on the ground, he flew the Blaster over to her.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked.

“Oh you be quiet too” Aster said. She didn’t want to explain, even if she could. She just wanted to be alone... 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m relying on you to get back together. So if you’d quit whining like a child-” 

At that Aster’s eyes flared, and the Blaster under Gaster vanished. He yelped as his skull fell through the air, landing on the void. Aster silently walked over and put it in the bag with the other bones.

“What are you doing?!” Gaster asked, but Aster didn’t reply.

He kept talking as she kept walking, but eventually he gave up. Aster kept walking in the same direction, eventually finding the next bone.

 

 

 

“Which way now?” she asked, monotone.

“If you’d let me out I could show you-”

“Which way.”

“I’m not going to just sit in here like a piece of-”

Aster ignored him, and summoned a Blaster again. She put in on the floor of the void, and concentrated on making it shoot a thin, long beam from it’s mouth. Once it started, she slowly rotated the skull, until she heard a scream. Still facing that direction, Aster picked up the bag and started walking, her Blaster bobbing along behind her.

“That was cruel...” Gaster gasped.

“You wouldn’t answer my question, and I wasn’t going to waste more time.” Aster replied flatly.

“You have no right to treat me like this,” Gaster said.

“I don't care."

“...you make no sense girl. Why are you even helping me?” Gaster asked.

Aster didn’t respond at first. Gaster eventually sighed, sure she was ignoring him again. Eventually, she slowly said, “I just want to do something right for once.”

“Of course you have a selfish reason... though that would explain your flip-flopping nature. You only care about yourself.”

Aster didn’t reply. She didn’t want to think about it.

They traveled in silence, eventually reaching the next bone piece. Aster asked Gaster again where to go.

“Look, the void goop is blocking my senses. I cannot tell you.”

At this, Aster picked him up and said, “Okay. I’ll put you on the Blaster again so you can lead the way.”

“Not even going to apologize for what you did?” 

Aster stared at him for a moment, before turning her face away.  She turning and placing Gaster’s skull on the Blaster, then stood waiting for him to move. He slowly floated ahead of her, guiding her to the next bones, intermediately grumbling.

 

 

 

Eventually, Aster started to stumble. Gaster didn’t notice until she fell over, instantly asleep. He turned around, still atop the Blaster, to see that Aster had seemingly vanished.

"What... hey kid, where’d you go?” he asked, moving the Blaster down to ground level. He could see the bag of bones, and a slight lump next it, but no Aster.

He flew right over to the lump, wondering what it could be. It just seemed like a lump of goop in the sea of goop that made up the floor. “But the ground’s been perfectly smooth so far...” he muttered.

Gaster thought, and then eventually decided to try something. He focused on the Blaster he was controlling, willing it to shoot a blast of it’s magic. The Blaster warmed up, charging, but did not fire. “What is wrong with this thing?” Gaster asked, still trying to make it shoot magic. Eventually he wondered if the Blaster couldn’t shoot raw magic at all, like his Blasters were designed to do.

“This kid really is weird...” he muttered, then changed tactics. The kid had called the beam of magic light, so perhaps it really was a kind of magical light beam. “It would make the Blaster useless as a weapon... but I wonder if this thing was made to be a weapon at all,” he muttered.

He focused on shooting a beam of light, and this time after charging up the Blaster shot a thin beam of light from it’s mouth onto the lump. The lump slid away from a spot, and Gaster caught a glimpse of something blueish within it, before the goop reformed over the soul.

“Her soul? Was that really Aster’s soul?” he asked no one in particular. It bothered him that she had apparently melted, and that her soul had so little protection. “Foolish girl... if anyone came along you would be dead...”

Uneasily Gaster wondered if that was perhaps the point. Hr didn’t particularly like this human, but he needed her.

“Hey, kid, wake up! Kid- Aster- come on, wake up!” he said. If Aster heard she didn’t respond. Gaster tried talking at her a few times, but he eventually gave up. He was starting to wonder if she had simply fallen asleep. If maintaining a physical form had cost her magical energy, her soul would get exhausted after awhile. “Bothersome,” he muttered, “but not unexpected. I suppose a long time has passed since we started walking."

 

 

Gaster decided to keep watch over the area. Running into Aster had made his original assumption that the void was empty invalid, and he didn’t want to be caught unawares. A few times he thought he saw something beyond the ring of ambient light the Blaster cast, but he couldn’t be sure. Every time he moved closer, whatever he had seen vanished.

Hours later, he saw the lump around Aster finally start to reform. It shaped itself into a vague body, then the definition of clothes and her face appeared, before finally Aster opened her eyes and sat up. “I must have passed out again...” she muttered.

“Passed out _and_ dissolved. You could have warned me about _that_ ,” Gaster said. He was still sitting on the Blaster, staring at the void around them.

“I _what?”_ Aster asked.

“Dissolved. Turned into goo. Actually, a little pile of goo barely bigger than your soul. Surely you knew that.”

“How am I suppose to know what I look like when I’m asleep?” Aster asked. She paused for a minute, digesting what he said. “A little pile, huh? That might explain it...”

“Explain what?”

“Why whenever I reappeared here earlier I was just a soul without a body. I guess I don’t really _have_ a normal body anymore at all.”

“Hmm... it would fit the facts... but I would like to know how you can form a body out of the goop in the first place.”

“Not a clue. You’re the magic expert, not me.”

Gaster sat thinking for a few minutes, then started moving towards his bones unconsciously. Aster followed, still waiting for a response.

“...there are several options... but it depends on a few factors. Can you control the void not attached to your body at all?”

“I don’t think so... but I’ll try...”

Aster closed her eyes and concentrated on reaching out to the void.

 

 

“Yes? Can I help you?” the void leader said.

“Crap, I wasn’t trying to talk to you...” Aster thought.

“I suppose you were trying to contact the void collective then?”

“...ya. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

The leader sighed. “I hope one day you’ll stop confusing us, but it isn’t entirely your fault. The collective cannot ‘speak’, if you remember.”

“...I remember... now. But it can still respond...”

“When you speak out-loud. But even if you were to speak, you cannot do what you are trying to.”

“How do you know what I want to do?”

“Figure out how you’re doing this in the first place and you’ll have your answer.”

“Fine... So I can only control the void that makes up my body?”

“These are all questions you can figure out yourself. In fact, you need to. If you don’t, you’ll never master your power.”

“...if you say so.” Aster thought, and closed off communication again. She turned to face Gaster and said, “Nope, I can’t.”

 

 

Gaster was staring at her quizzically, but he didn’t question her. He turned and started moving forward again, and asked, “When you went back to your world, did you have a solid form?”

“...No. I was a ghost. I could barely see myself. Sans could see me, but-”

“Sans? You have a Sans?” Gaster asked, surprised. 

“...Yes? He’s my younger brother.”

“Bro-? I see. Your world is quite different from my own.”

“Why? What is Sans to you in your world?”

Gaster ignored her question, and instead said, “Then you cannot create a magical body. Hrmm... you are strange. I’m not sure what magic you are using.”

“Helpful. Then again, my magic, my problem I guess. I’ll think over it.”

“You do that. Just make sure you follow me. And no magic blasts this time.”

“Dude, your on my Blaster. I can sense where you are without looking. And..." Aster started, but hesitated. Gaster just ignored it and kept moving.

 

 

Aster and Gaster continued on in silent, both lost in their collective thoughts. Hours later, they finally reached the last bone.

“Huh, you were closer together than I thought you’d be,” Aster said.

“Well how far do you think an explosion would scatter me? And we still walked many miles,” Gaster replied.

“...True. Okay, I guess now I need to piece you back together?”

“That would help, unless you want me to be all misshapen.”

“...good point.”

Under Gaster’s directions, Aster put all the bones back in their proper places, or as near as she could manage. Gaster’s ribcage caused the most difficulty, as most of the ribs were broken apart and couldn’t be re-connected.

Aster eventually grunted. “Look, how about I start by just fixing this stupid ribcage? There’s no way the bones will just stay in place.”

“... just make sure you limit your magic to _just_ the those bones, got it?” Gaster said. He was bobbing around on the Blaster erratically, his eyes even wider than normal. He then said, “pick up a rib and bring it in front of the Blaster.”

Aster did so, holding the fragmented bone together. Once she was in front of the Blaster, she closed her eyes and concentrated. “Just a little bit of magic this time... don’t overdo it... restore....” she thought. She concentrated on that one word- restore- and slowly felt the familiar burn come back.

She opened her eyes and the Blaster whirled faintly before emitting a soft white light. Unlike the other times, this light wasn’t a beam, more of a cloud of light. Aster held the bones in the light, and felt them slowly knit together. When it was fixed, she put the bone down and got another rib.

The Blaster maintained the cloud of light, and slowly Aster fixed all the ribs. She did the same thing to any other bone that was too broken to be fitted together properly.

Finally, the skeleton looked whole, except for hairline fractures all over it marking where it was broken. She took Gaster’s skull off the Blaster and put it where it belonged on the skeleton.

“You sure you know what your doing?” Gaster asked, his skull twitching.

“It’s a little late now to be asking that, isn’t it?” Aster replied. She gave a soft smile and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”

“Harumph,” Gaster said. “Like you wouldn’t before?”

Aster sighed, and said, "Not like it means much, but I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have been so mean."

Gaster didn't reply, so Aster turned her attention to her Blaster. She held it this time, and slowly passed it over the breaks in the skeleton. She was starting to get exhausted when she finally reached Gaster’s skull. “What do I do about your skull? Is it fused to your neck or free?”

“It’s free, magic keeps it in place. Don’t worry about the cracks, they can’t be fixed. My skull’s intact, just heal the spinal cord, it’s fractured.”

“Got it,” Aster said, moving the light over the offending bone. It took longer than the rest to heal, and Aster began to suspect that it wouldn’t at all. At last though, something changed. Gaster’s eyes, before as see-through as any skull’s, blackened out. Except for one red dot in his right eye, which quickly faded away. At this Aster pulled back the Blaster, startled. 

Gaster slowly clicked his jaw, but it didn’t seem to satisfy him. He slowly moved his arms up and shoved the jaw to the left a bit, before saying, “Ah, much better. That being out of place was driving me crazy.”

“Why didn’t you ask me to fix it?” Aster asked, her eyes started to close involuntarily.

“Because you wouldn’t know how to do it properly. Hey, you’re not going to dissolve on me again are you?” Gaster asked, noticing her starting to fall forward again.

“I’m... tired... Gaster.... I need rest.” Aster said, before falling dead asleep and dissolving into a puddle again.

“Humph. Well, I suppose you did do a lot,” Gaster said, before yawning himself. “Nap time for us both I guess...”

Before he dozed off, though, Gaster summoned his Blaster. It was shaped like a snake’s skull, and it’s reddish-yellow eyes glowed menacingly. “That should keep anything at bay,” he muttered, before falling fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, sorry for the long time between positing. University is hard...
> 
> I'm trying to make Aster and Bones not completely unlikable but still having problems- I'm not sure how well I'm succeeding at that. If not, could you please reply with a comment telling me? 
> 
> Also, I'm really not sure how well I'm doing with the ration of dialogue to action to exposition... 
> 
> Anyways, regardless if you comment or not, thanks for reading!


	9. Let's Try Something New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones is a little skeptical of what Aster knows, so they decides to test things out themselves.

Aster slowly woke up hours later, and looked over to see Gaster still fast asleep. She thought about waking him up but figured it would be rude. Gaster’s Blaster still hovered around the area, occasionally twirling around to shine it’s light on the void. Aster was fascinated by the Blaster- it looks far more intimidating than her’s- but was quickly distracted by all-too-familiar red eyes.

She went over to Gaster and shook him awake. “Hey, Bones, wake up, we need to get out of here now.”

Gaster instantly reached up and tried to choke Aster, before opening his eyes and realizing who it was. “Don’t... do... that.”

Aster wasn't disturbed by the gesture, since it was pointless anyways. “Sorry, but we need to go. The monsters are back.”

“Monsters?” Gaster asked, sitting up and looking around himself. He noted with concern the red eyes, and that there seemed to be several pairs of them.

“Ya. Shadowy creatures who will destroy your entire existence. Now move,” Aster said, dragging Gaster to his feet and away from the creatures.

Gaster shook her off and said, “Hold on. How do you know any of this?”

“Void Leader told me,” Aster replied, stopping to look back at him.

“Void... what.”

“....er....” Aster said, shuffling her feet, “it’s a sentient presence here in the void, seems to have some control over the goop, but the goop has it’s own sentience?”

“...I’ve never once seen or heard of any such creature while I’ve been here,” Gaster said, crossing his arms.

“...You need to have telepathy or something related to talk to him... I think. It took me forever to figure it out.”

Gaster sighed, rubbing his nasal cavity. “Assuming you aren’t simply mad, why exactly should we believe anything it says?”

“...I’d... know if it was lying...” Aster said, her words sounding hollow even to herself. She looked to the side, not wanting to see Gaster’s anger.

“You’d know. Really. And how would you know this?”

“...the connection, telepathic link, whatever, let’s me sense what emotions he has at any given time...”

“Has it occurred to you that he may simply be incapable of feeling guilt over lying?”

“...no...” Aster said.

“Has he ever caused you harm?” Gaster asked, though anger, not concern, was in his tone.

“...he turned me into this...”

Gaster made an incredulous noise, and started muttering under his breath in a strange language and gesturing widely, though not in any sign language she knew. She heard “naive girl” and “why did I ever listen” but the rest she couldn't understand. The language he was using sounded strange, and Aster wasn’t sure how she could understand him at all. She pushed that aside for a minute and spoke up.

“Hey, I can hear you. Ya maybe I am naive, but I’m not an idiot. Let’s do a little test to see if my assumption- that the creatures are dangerous- is accurate or faulty.”

Gaster looked up, surprised, before asking, “What test would you propose?”

“The creatures have already tried to attack me before, but it could be due to my humanity. You are a monster like them, what they do- or don’t- to you would show their inherent maliciousness. I propose that we go over to one of them. I’ll stand a ways off, out of sight of the creature, while you stand near it. No Blasters for either of us, as they can be seen as weapon. If it attacks you, they’re dangerous. If they don’t, then either they don’t like humans or something else caused them to attack.”

“Hmm... it could work. But how do you propose going unseen by the monsters?”

“I can re-merge with the void at will, I’ll just duck beneath the surface.”

“And if I am attacked?”

“I’m sure a war veteran can defend himself.”

Gaster looked a little surprised, but instead said, “You would have no way of knowing what is happening if submerged in the void. Exactly how long would you stay there?”

“Hmm...” Aster said, then thought of something. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on her appearance. If she changed shape while sleeping, perhaps...

Gaster made a noise, and Aster opened her eyes. She was now pure black, and more of a blob than a human. “I suppose that will suffice?” she asked, her voice strangely staticy. 

“Yes... I believe so,” Gaster said. “Let us move then. I saw a solitary creature over here,” he said, pointing to his right before walking off. Aster slid after him.

They approached the monster, Aster staying a few feet away from Gaster. Even if she was all dark, she didn’t know if the monster could sense her in other ways. 

Gaster walked up to it, and the monster turned to face him. It was... some humanoid, Aster couldn’t discern anything unusual about it. Oddly enough it had only one eye, which lit up considerably when it saw Gaster. It barred it’s glowing red, piranha-like teeth and lunged forward at Gaster. It’s dark arm passed through Gaster’s rib cage before he could react, and pulled back with his soul in hand.

Gaster collapsed to the ground, wheezing and clutching his chest. He tried to summon his Blaster, but without his soul he couldn’t use magic. Suddenly, a beam of light shot the shadow monster, which cried out and dropped Gaster’s soul.

Aster rushed forward, Blaster still pointed at the creature, and pulled Gaster to his feet. “Okay, experiment over, we run now,” she said.

“My... soul..” Gaster gasped, and Aster leaned over and grabbed it. It felt fragile, like it was made of snow, and Aster noticed with concern that it was a fairly dark red. She handed the soul to Gaster, who pushed it back in his chest. He still seemed weak after his soul returned, so Aster pulled him along behind her. 

She hadn’t reformed her body yet, still being a black blob with two tendrils of goop that wrapped around Gaster’s arms, almost like she was a moving backpack. Gaster continued to wheeze and cough, but he choked out, “it’s following us...”

Aster twisted her ‘head’ behind and saw that the creature had indeed reformed and followed them. She asked Gaster, “Can you manipulate my Blaster like before, and shoot at it?”

“...I’ll... try...” he said. He concentrated on the Blaster, eventually making it move around in front of him. Just seeing the Blaster made the creature slow down, and eventually it's eyelights disappeared.

“It... went away...” Gaster said.

“That’s just a trick they do...” Aster replied. “They know we can track them by their eyes. They did that to surround me before.”

“So... what do we....do?” he asked. Gaster tried to think of a plan, but his head felt wrong. Had the shadow creature messed with his soul?

Aster looked at him again, and saw to her dismay that his eyes had gone out again, just being holes in the bone. “Well, I’d run, but you look terrible. We need to hide.”

“How...?”

“...I can re-merge with the void, remember... maybe if I... I don’t want to say absorb, but that’s the closest... it would keep you safe to... they may just give up after awhile...”

“No!” Gaster said, then started coughing. “No... not... unless we have... no choice....”

“...Okay. I know it’s a bad plan. I’ll just keep moving...”

Aster took control of her Blaster back, and had it shoot a small beam of light continually, rotating above their heads like a lighthouse. She and Gaster kept looking for the creatures, occasionally seeing them in the gloom. More were coming.

“Can you... take us back... to your world?” Gaster asked.

“...I don’t know. The only time I’ve ever gone to my world, I was a free-floating soul... I have no idea if I can take you with me.”

“Maybe... try it...”

Aster shook her “head.” “No, I can’t get the timing right. I’d be gone for hours, even if I try not to.”

“So it’s not... teleportation...”

“Don’t think so... wait, you can teleport, can’t you?”

“...too weak... my soul aches....”

“...it felt almost like snow when I held it... they’re not suppose to do that, are they?”

“...no... it means it’s going to... shatter...”

“... that’s not good...” Aster said, then thought for a minute. “Can I fix it? With my magic?”

“...I’m not sure... but it’s... worth a shot...”

Aster stopped, and let Gaster go. He collapsed to the ground, then he slowly pulled his soul out of his body. It faintly glowed, but it still seemed unstable.

Aster lowered herself to Gaster’s level, the Blaster still floating above them. She tried to close her eyes before realizing she didn’t have any, and instead concentrated on the Blaster. It’s beam of light changed to the soft cloud of healing light. Aster pulled it down in front of Gaster, and very slowly moved it towards Gaster’s soul. 

He winced prematurely, shutting his eyes, but opened one when he realized it didn’t hurt this time. His soul couldn’t be seem in the cloud, but he could feel it slowly solidifying. Aster watched his eyes, and when they darkened again she pulled the Blaster back. His soul still looked red and fragile, but it looked like that when she first met him.

“I think that’s all I can do for you,” she said apologetically.

“Restoration magic can only return something to it’s original state,” Gaster rattled off. “Don’t worry about it. At least now I can walk,” he said, standing up.

Aster rose up too, and changed the Blaster to once again act like a lighthouse. They looked out, and saw...

“We’re surrounded,” Gaster said. Aster nodded.

There were at least fifty shadow creatures around them in a massive circle. They didn’t seem to be getting closer, though Aster thought she could see some all-dark ones creeping towards them. 

“Okay... now we really, REALLY need to get out of here,” Aster said.

“I’ll teleport and you leave?” Gaster suggested.

“...you try teleporting first. I can stay here and be safe, you can’t.”

“You’re assuming it won’t work...” Gaster said, but soon ignored here. He closed his eyes and pictures his Lab back in the Underground, trying to open the portal that normally let him move between space. He could feel his soul burning hot, trying to summon the magic, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes to see the same Void around him.

“... it doesn’t work here...”

“From what the Leader said, the Void isn’t in time-space at all... teleporting is manipulating space, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why.”

“...that person again... I still don’t necessarily believe him... but that theory could be correct. Or I could be too weak still to teleport.”

“Either way, you’re stuck here. And we can’t run.” Aster said.

“...let me think...” Gaster said.

He paced around in a little circle, trying to think of a plan. They could blast their way out of there, but if the monsters swarmed them it wouldn’t work. They could try dashing through the line, but they didn’t know if the ring was multiple monsters deep. They could try to defend their spot, but...

“Do these monsters ever seem to get tired?”

“Nope. I ran away from them before and they followed along fine until I collapsed. I’m not even sure they’re alive in the truest sense of the word, much less get tired.”

“...I doubt they fit any regular definition of life...” Gaster muttered. He sighed, and said, “In which case, running or fighting would be pointless. We need to leave. You said you could... absorb me? Perhaps you could try to do that and leave for your own world.”

“I don’t know if I can, but obviously my body isn’t exactly solid. “ Aster said. “... We can try it. Hopefully I don’t end up leaving you behind.”

“I can fight if I have to. Just come back quickly.”

“Got it,” Aster said. 

Aster sighed, uncomfortable with the entire idea but not having a better one herself. She moved forward, still a blob, and tried to just move through Gaster. She could feel the void pushing through his bones, until he was completely engulf. Gaster to his credit didn’t recoil away, but he did claw away at her “face” until his mouth was sticking out.

“I still need to breathe you idiot!” he said.

“S-sorry! I didn’t know you breathed in the first place!” Aster said. Internally, she thought, “You’re just a stupid skeleton, skeletons don’t normally breathe.”

“Well this one does,” Gaster replied, though he didn’t speak.

“Wha? You heard that? I wasn’t even talking!” Aster thought.

“Bigger concerns Aster, let’s try to get out of here first,” Gaster said, pointing at the rapidly approaching monsters. They seemed angry that Gaster had vanished.

“Right,” Aster though. She focused on returning to her world, but since she wasn't welcome with Sans and Pap, she decided to go to her favorite mountain instead of their home. In her mind she repeated “return” and concentrated on the place.

“Why are you saying that?” Gaster asked.

“It’s how I’ve always gone back. Now shush,” she replied.

Gaster did indeed grow quiet, though she could vaguely sense him thinking something. As they were started to fade out, his consciousness came back into the for-front. Aster could “see” a location, a... Lab?... under a mountain. 

She was concerned, but couldn’t break concentration halfway through a shift. Before she faded completely, she felt something hit her, slashing through the goop. This shocked her, and seemed to throw her out of the Void.

The first thing that happened when the appeared was Aster collapsing into a puddle of goo, and Gaster collapsing beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Great plans guys. 
> 
> Staticey voice means that it sounds like Entry 17, the normal voice with that weird static sound behind it. And I know staticey isn't a word,   
> I don't know a better one to use.


	10. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Aster out of commission, Gaster must find them both a way out and a way to restore their magic before it's too late. But being back inside Mt. Ebott brings back many memories ... for better and for worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aster isn't the only protagonist here, "Bones" Gaster is as well. And I thought it was about time we learned a little something about this tight-lipped doctor.

Gaster woke up with a splitting headache. He groaned, and rubbed his skull as he sat up. He blearily opened one eyes and looked around.

Instead of the Lab he expected to see, he saw cave walls illuminated by some orange glow. Heart sinking, he stood up and almost fell over again. He swayed for a moment before getting control of his legs again, and shakily walked forward. He soon saw a field of lava below the rock plateau he stood on. He looked to the left, and saw what he expected- a path leading to a small square plateau with paths on each side. 

“I’m in Hotlands...” he muttered. “Only it’s deserted.”

He looked around for any sign of habitation, but couldn’t see anything. He thought about it for a moment, and speculated he had arrived either before the Underground had been populated with people, or “we’re in Aster’s world...”

He decided to do a test to see which was true. He tried to activate his lock-on magic, which is attuned correctly let him see raw magic in the air. The lava fields held more raw magic than any place in the Underground, hence why he chose it for the CORE. It took him quite a few minutes to concentrate properly, and for him to be sure he was tuned to the right frequency. He finally looked around, but saw only the same cave walls. In order to be sure if his magic was indeed functioning, he looked over at Aster. He could see her SOUL, though only faintly, as though it were almost empty of magic. He made a note to ensure her safety in a minute.

He then tried to summon his Blaster, and a pale version of it appeared before crumbling away. He also felt weaker for having summoned the weapon. “Hmm... it would seem this world truly does not support magic... if not actually draws away magic. I wonder...”

He looked down at his hands, and saw that they had tiny marks all over them, like they were made of sandpaper. “This does not bode well. It would seem I am slowly turning to dust from lack of magic... I did not appear this way in the Void. The transportation could have caused this effect, or perhaps this world. I must monitor my physical state in order to discern which.”

Gaster walked over to Aster, and saw to his dismay that her form had turned back into a puddle of goo with a soul in the middle. She appeared worse than before, the goo not even covering her exposed soul. The dark blue soul also appeared sickly, not emitting any light and slowly expanding and contracting. “Why does it change shape...? Strange...”

Gaster knew both of them were dangerously low on magic, and that without magic-infused air they wouldn’t regain any by rest. He needed to find food- a rough substitute for raw magic but better than nothing.

Since Aster was so weak, Gaster picked up her soul. Oddly, the puddle rose up with it, attached by the thinnest of lines to her soul. A thin webbing of the goo also covered the soul, though the strands were so fine he had to look hard to see them. Gaster shrugged, and draped the goo around his shoulders like a shawl. It spread over his body down to his knees, but ultimately stayed attached to Aster’s soul, which he perched on his shoulder. 

“Strange as this arrangement is, at least I’m not walking around exposed anymore...” he muttered. He hadn’t cared if the human saw him, but he didn’t know yet if any monsters existed in this world, at this time, and he’d rather not receive odd glances. Few monsters went around unclothed, and skeletons were not one of them. He wondered idly what the girl would think about being clothing if she ever woke up, but he simply muttered, “It would be a taste of her own medicine, after lugging me around in a bag.”

He started walking towards where the Capital, and Barrier, would have existed. He wondered if he had ended up truly ended up in Aster’s world or not. It seemed likely, given the lack of magic or monsters, and the fact that she transported them both. “My thinking of the Lab redirected us here instead of that mountain she had pictured...” he said. “It would appear her ability mimics teleportation, but works between the Void and her world, not within a world like mine...”

He thought about trying to teleport, but knew he lacked the magic to do so. He would expend more energy teleporting to the Barrier than just walking there anyways, and energy was currently critical.

Without the raised walkways of New Home, traversing to the Barrier proved more difficult. “It was fortunate I saw Hotlands as it was first developed... “ he muttered. He climbed up and down the various formations of rock, following an would-have-been abandoned trail to New Home. 

The path skirted the lava lake, making it near impassible for creatures of flesh and blood. He remembered helping to build the original raised stone walkways, terra-forming the land to make it slightly accessible to other monsters. He had worked alongside the more metallic and fiery monsters who could withstand the lava’s immense heat. A few reptiles helped, but they had to constantly go back to Waterfall to cool their overheated bodies. He mused that he wasn’t particularly helpful in the building- more so in destroying rock to make way for the others. But they couldn’t be picky when only a handful of monsters could even stay near the lava.

Gaster sighed. Walking through the abandoned cave reminded him far too much of when monsters had first been banished underground. He had stood with the King as the monsters trooped into the cave in Mt. Ebott, human soldiers jeering and shoving the slower creatures along. Not that many slow monsters had even survived. All that remained of monsterkind were the soldiers that survived the war, a village or two of carefully-hidden creatures, and the fort where the King had stayed. He recognized nearly every monster within the group- many he saw in the fort daily, as they went about their work. Others, soldiers, he remembered fighting alongside in the war. 

But they were hard to recognize. Every monster, from the youngest child to the oldest craftsman, was as sad as a monster could be. Not a single monster shed a tear, such was their resolve to not give the humans satisfaction. They did not look up, either, but only watched the feet of the monster in front of them, their faces carefully blank. But Gaster could see their souls, and in every one he saw such darkness he could hardly believe they could walk.

How, he had wondered, could creatures comprised of hope be so hopeless?

He later learned how those monsters had survived. Every monster had at least one person they cared about. For their companion, they lived on, staying strong in face of impossible despair. They leaned on one another like dying men, which they nearly were. Every monster who was alone had crumbled into dust, a sight many monsters had witnessed before the end of the War. A mass funeral was held for all these fallen ones, and their names outnumbered the names of the survivors. And afterward whenever a monster died, they had to hold not a solitary, but a joint funeral.

And yet... monsters had lived on. Gaster watched beside the King as the monsters held each other up, mutually fighting to survive. They split into groups- the farmers, the healers, the builders- and worked as one entity towards rebuilding. Even during the turmoil after the war, the concern had been over the better care of all monsters, not one person’s individual desire for power.

Indeed, Gaster had noticed that individuality seemed to almost die out after the war, as had all forms of violence. Those who had survived had seen far, far too many others die to ever think of helping themselves at another’s expense. 

“And then the King went mad...” Gatser muttered. He was at the Barrier now, or where it would have stood. Instead of the familiar grey, magical wall, he saw a rocky path that led to an opening far above. Little light shone down- it was nighttime, Gaster assumed. He started climbing up, thinking of the two who had done this decades before.

The human child... Chara... had somehow survived an impossible fall into the Underground. Gaster had later wondering if the human’s uncannily Determined soul had allowed them to survive, but he could not be sure. He had been wary of the red-souled human at first, as determined humans had killed the most monsters during the war, and he could not easily unlearn his mannerisms.

But Chara had been...

“Hey doc, whatcha doing?” the little kid asked, peering over the edge of Gaster’s desk.

Gaster signed and put down his pen. “I am currently working on the calibration of the soul attribute analyzer, specifically on the sensitivity of the device.”

“.... so trying to make that machine able to read my soul?” Chara asked, pointing to the half-finished machine in the center of the room.

“...Yes, in a manner of speaking,” Gaster replied. He had always underestimated how intelligent Chara could be, especially for one so young. In monster years, they were barely an infant. Even in human years, they were still a child. But they figured out certain things quickly... sometimes too quickly.

Chara had realized early on that the Barrier would never fall if monsters had their way. Gaster privately thought that monsters’ kind nature prevented them from every completing the sacrifice necessary to destroy the Barrier, as when he approached Asgore and Toriel about it he had been shot down. He had been the one to discover that the energy of seven humans souls was needed to shatter the Barrier, and he was the one to first tell Asgore about it. The King steadfastly refused to entertain the idea.

“It is not a monster’s way to kill,” the King had said.

Gaster could not help but think, “You are soft and weak, unlike your father. He would not had hesitated to sacrifice seven worthless lives for the good of monsterkind.”

The old king, Angreel, had dusted a decade after monster’s had resettled. By then, all the major cities had been built and roles assigned, with Gaster being positioned as Royal Scientist. He had found it strange to be reassigned from bodyguard to scientist, but he could not argue with the King. He privately suspected the King knew he was dying, and had been making preparations for the decades ahead. 

Asgore had been a popular choice of replacement, though as Prince he hadn’t needed to worry. He had won the people’s hearts with his green thumb and soul, and everyone supported his every decision. But Gaster always thought he was too green- too weak, soft and new. He had been sheltered during the war, never once seeing the fighting despite being old enough for the draft. Angreel had his reasons, Gaster knew, but he never understood them. Something about Asgore being a peaceful ruler instead of a violent one, a fact reflected in his odd name. 

Asgore would never free monsters, for he would never kill a human or use their soul. Chara understood this, even at their age. Apparently they had offered Asgore their soul in order to break the Barrier, but were rejected. They had ranted to Gaster about this many times. 

“I don’t understand these monsters at all!” they had shouted. “Do they want to stay imprisoned forever because of their stupid morals?! And King Dad- what does he expect from me anyways? He keeps saying “You’re the future of humans and monsters”, but he won’t let me free monsters? How am I supposed to be the future of anything if we’re all stuck down here?!”

Gaster privately agreed, but instead said, “We must respect the King’s wishes, human.” He always called them human, a habit from before the war he couldn’t quite shake. “If my machine works as intended, we shan’t need your soul to be lost in any event. Even Asgore must agree to a non-lethal way of extracting the energy we needed to destroy the Barrier.”

“If it works properly, and that’s a pretty big if doc,” Chara replied. “What if it never does?”

“Then we make another plan,” Gaster replied calmly. “We have time, Chara.”

The child had evidently disagreed. They never told Gaster of their murder-suicide plot, but he figured it out fairly quickly. The little Prince would do anything Chara told him, for better or worse. He was young, naive and weak, like his father, but lacked Asgore’s common sense or Toriel’s wisdom. Perhaps if he were older he would have been wiser. 

As soon as Gaster heard that Asriel had disappeared with Chara’s corpse, he went to the palace. He stood guard outside the throne room, on the off chance that when Asriel returned, he brought a horde of angry humans with him. He had heard as Asriel stumbled in, calling for his parents. He heard their wails as Asriel crumbled into dust in their hands, the thud as Chara’s body fell to the ground. And he heard the King.

“The humans.... they will pay DEARLY for what they have done to my son...” he growled, his voice harder than Gaster had ever heard before.

“Is that all you can think of? Revenge?! Our children are dead!” Toriel replied, angrier than ever before.

“And their killers will not be forgiven. I will exterminate every last one of those evil humans,” Asgore said.

“Haven’t enough monsters died already?! Do you want to throw everyone’s lives away on an impossible war? We just lost one! Do you care that little for their lives?”

“Do you care so little about our children’s deaths?” Asgore snapped.

Gaster, sensing the oncoming storm, quickly teleported away from the room. When the Queen left soon afterwards, he pretended to not know the reason. Not that it mattered much. Asgore never spoke to him after the event, and simply sent him one message: “Destroy the Barrier, at any cost.”

Gaster mused that Asgore probably regretted his words later, but a King does not apologize, or stand down from his word. He most certainly would regret his words to Gaster, if he ever learned of what they led to. 

“That is, if I ever meet with Asgore again...” Gaster muttered. “There’s no way of knowing how long it will take me to return home, and if Asgore will even be alive when I return... the fool may just have died from grief by the time I get back.”

Gaster knew the King was starting to crack when he had been thrown into the void. The third human had fallen, and Asgore had killed them personally this time, instead of the environment killing them like the two before. The King’s cries could be heard throughout the palace. Others whispered, confused as to the King’s odd outburst, but Gaster had no such confusion.

The King possessed a green soul, with hints of blue and yellow through it. It was not in his nature to kill. He was also LOVE 1, having never fought in the war. 

All of the Palace staff were LOVE 1, so they did not understand, could not understand. But Gaster knew.

What Asgore felt... was his soul growing bitter and cold from the killing, a frightening numbness that refuses to go away despite your every action. To a green soul, this numbness went so far against it’s true nature as to immediately start blackening the soul, corrupting the true nature of the person. It was a process only the soldiers truly knew, and they didn’t share this knowledge readily, ashamed of their corrupted souls and hearts.

Gaster had long since ceased to care about the matter. He knew all too well the effects of LOVE, the darkness and corruption. His own LOVE 17 soul was empty and dark as the Void he had been cast into, and no matter how much he had tried to remedy this fact, there was no fixing a corrupted soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bones' world for the most part follows my headcanon for a 'shortened timeline' Undertale, so for the most part it's canon unless noted.
> 
> Magic in this story is a type of energy/matter, and as such follows laws like the first law of thermodynamics- i.e. magic cannot be created nor destroyed. I realize this is uncommon- magic normally just exists in stories in limitless quantities- but the scientist in me cannot allow for this. 
> 
> Bones will explain magic more next chapter, but for now: magic cannot be created from nothing. This can be a problem for made-from-magical monsters in a magicless world.


	11. Nothing is Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster and Bones emerge on the Surface, and all they find are some old memories and troubling information. Though anywhere is better than the Void, right?

Gaster finally reached the top of the staircase. He looked out, and saw something he thought he'd never see again: the moonlit night sky.

Above him, the stars shone brightly, the sky perfectly clear. The crescent moon shone down on the forest below, bathing it in a silvery light.

He looked out, towards the horizon, and caught sight of the cold Atlantic Ocean, the moonlight rippling on the waves. He could see the other mountain, Mt. Itoi, in the far distance. And...

On the horizon, looming large even here, was the Dreemurr Castle. The last fort and holdout during the war. Gaster wondered if, had they not choose that place to make their last stand, would the monsters have never been sentenced to the Underground? “Then again, what would the humans have done to us then...?” he muttered.

His concentration was broken by a movement on his shoulder. He looked over, and saw Aster’s soul slowly start to glow, and propel itself to the side. Guessing her intentions, Gaster picked up Aster’s soul and placed it back of the ground, the void goop sliding off of him like water. 

Once on the ground, the goop congealed around the soul again, and slowly rose up in a pillar of goo. It barely made it as high as Gaster’s waist before stopping, though he could see the goo trying to move upward repeatedly. Eventually it gave up,  staying still for a moment before slowly forming two white “eyes” near the top of the pillar. 

“Hello... Bones...” Aster said slowly, her voice corrupted and quiet. She felt strange, speaking without a mouth, but was too tired to pay it much mind. She just assumed it was a goop thing.

 

“Hello Wing,” he replied, amused. If the girl would call him by his nickname, he would call her by one as well.

She was slightly surprised he knew her nickname, but was too tired to think about it. “Where... are... we...? This... isn’t... my mountain...”

“No,” Gaster said quietly, “It’s mine. Welcome to Mt. Ebott, home to all monsterkind... that was left after the war, anyways.”

“You... lived here....?” Aster asked. She moved closer to Gaster, trying to rub against him, but he pulled back. “I’m... sorry.... I didn’t... know....”

“Evidently not. If this is indeed your world, your kind has either never waged war with monsters, or they simply never existed. The mountain is empty.”

“My guess is... never existed... unless.... we’re far... in the past...”

“That is is possible. However, magic does not seem to exist here freely, and monsters are creatures of raw magic. They cannot survive here.”

“Then how... are you...?”

 

“...” Gaster looked back at his hands, rougher than before. “I will not last many days here. We need to find nourishment at once.” He started walking down the mountain, heading for the nearest village, or where it would have stood. He hoped that a version of it still existed, or that he could find food along the way. He knew the edible fauna of this region, and at worst he could hunt using his Blaster. He’d rather not waste the energy to do so though.

Aster followed behind him, sliding along the ground like a slug. She tried to stay upright, but it took too much energy and she kept falling. She noticed to her alarm that she couldn’t feel the ground at all... it felt like her body was just moving through space. Had she not seen the ground, she would have assumed she was floating. She assumed it was just a side-effect of her strange form and the fact that she was exhausted. She pushed her panic aside in favor of curiosity.

 

 “I... didn’t eat... for years... in the void... why would I need to... now..?” Aster asked, confused. 

“You used stored magic while in the Void,” Gaster explained. “Magic comes from the soul, if you recall. You must have had a large store of excess magic in your soul, which sustained you for that time. But without magic-infused air or food, your soul will not be able to generate more. And I suspect your body needs magic to exist now,” he said, motioning to the pillar that now made up Aster.

“Given... that’s I’m just a ghost now... you’re probably... right...” Aster said. “So... any food... will restore... magic...?”

“Not directly. Monster food would, as it’s pure magic. Human food can be broken down by the body and turned into energy, which can be converted by the soul into magic.”

“Sounds... complicated...”

Gaster shrugged. “It’s the same process mortals use to gather energy from ingested items. We simply use the soul to absorb energy instead of cells.”

“Hmm... makes sense... but wait... how can you... eat...?”

“...a certain magic spell let’s me instantly dissolve food and absorb energy from it... I found much use of it during the war. Otherwise I would have to hold food in my body using magic.”

“So you... used magic... to get magic... sounds risky...”

Gaster nodded. “I lack any other viable options. Unless you knew how to transfer energy, which I doubt.”

 

“... I could try... if I ever... get enough energy for myself... that is...”

Gaster snorted. “I could turn to dust, and you’re worried about your appearance. Typical-”

“No,” Aster cut in. “My soul... feels like it’s fracturing... it hurts... I would have collapsed by now... had I been mortal...”

Gaster looked at her, surprised. “Your soul did not look that injured when I examined it.”

“...it’s strange... it’s like... two parts... pulling apart... but not the sides... almost... the inner and outer... parts...?”

“Souls don’t have an inner and outer part,” Gaster said automatically, but he recalled something. Aster’s soul had been... pulsing... could that be what she felt? If so, what could be causing it?

“You are one strange human,” Gaster said.

“I know that,” Aster replied. “How many humans... can even... use magic?”

“Plenty,” Gaster said, before twirling around and striding away. Aster slunk after him, wondering what she had said.

 

Eventually, they came to a clearing. In it stood brown, round, wattle-and-dub houses, long since abandoned and in disrepair. Only a few still stood upright at all, many having collapsed inward or had a wall and part of the roof caved in. There were perhaps twenty remains of houses, scattered about randomly. 

Gaster and Aster moved though the village, passing the flaking houses and remains of the inhabitants’ possessions. Aster saw what looked like old chairs and tables, in the houses and strewn in the streets, broken and weathered. There occasionally little fine things in the soil that still sparkled in the moonlights- old beads, or shards of glass. Aside from these small items, everything was a dreary brown, looking dark in the moonlight. Oddly the ground was rutted in places, showing old marks of objects... or people... being dragged through the walkways. 

Everything was also incredibly dusty, even the ground having an inch layer of fine earth. Aster wondered if that meant it was summertime- it didn’t looked like it had rained in awhile. The village was oddly devoid of any kind of life, as well- no green plants grew in the walls of the houses, no insects buzzed around. She listed, but couldn’t hear anything moving about sans Gaster.

 

She moved up next to him, and asked, “why is it so... dead... here?”

Gaster gave her a contemptuous look, then remembered that she was ignorant of most everything in his past. He sighed, and said quietly, “In my world, this was a monster village, one of the last destroyed by the advancing human soldiers. They had nothing to steal, little to destroy. Yet...”

He saw in his mind’s eye, the human soldiers, dressed in their stained leather armor, dragging the villagers through the streets by their throats. A few monsters tried to fight back, but their magic didn’t make a dent in the soldiers life force. The few that did attack got a sword to the back of their heads for the trouble, or a shield bashed in their face. Many simply stood frozen with fear, hoping the soldiers would leave them alone.

They hoped in vain. The humans took every monster to the center of the town... where they had burned them alive. Gaster had seen it all from the mountain, watching through a telescope. He had wanted to help the village, but had been told to not interfere. “We have too few soldiers to protect our own people, much less the resources to protect every rebellious village. If they refuse our protection, we will not be responsible for their destruction,” the King had said. 

 

“Such was the harsh realities at the end of the war,” Gaster finished. Aster stared at him, too shocked to speak. 

“...you would... let them... over breaking... orders...? How could... innocent monsters...”

“They had been offered refuge, and had refused,” snapped Gaster. “They thought the humans would just leave them alone, that they could hide. They were wrong. I had to patrol, to make sure the human forces didn’t find the refugees we _did_  protect. Were their lives less important than the villagers?”

“... no... but I would have... tried something...”

“You are such a child. Had you been in the war, you might have understood....” 

Gaster sighed, and said, “But of course you are a child. You cannot understand. But I will ask you this: if you had gone in and played hero, and a group of monsters relying on you to protect them got slaughtered, what would you do?”

Aster didn’t answer. Gaster evidently didn’t expect one, and simply turned around and continued walking, Aster following him. When they reached the edge of town, Gaster stooped and looked at something.

 

“Ah! It appears someone had lived here at one time,” he said.

“What did you find?” Aster asked.

“Onions. Or their tops. This looks like the remains of a garden. Let’s salvage what we can from this,” he said, starting to pull up the onions.

 

Aster slid a ways off, looking for something above ground that she could eat. She tried to form hands, or even just tendrils of goop, but couldn’t manage it. Eventually she found a tree with some kind of fruit- apples it looked like. They were still green, but maybe they were edible. A few had fallen to the ground, and she slid over them, trying to “pick” them up.

To her surprise, the apples seemed to absorb inside of her. She couldn’t feel them per say- she couldn't feel anything at all like this- but she could feel the displacement of goop. “What in the world...? I want to pick them up, not absorb them!”

She tried again with other fallen apples, but it was the same every time. The apples would be absorbed by the goop, and slowly disintegrate. Aster grew more and more frustrated, trying instead to lean over and ‘pick’ one up with her ‘face’, but it just got absorbed too. 

When she did lean over, to discovered to her surprise that she had actually absorbed a rock instead of an apple. “A rock? What the heck, that isn’t edible!” 

 

Gaster eventually heard her and walked over. “Can’t find any food?” he asked.

“No, I can _find_  food, I can’t pick any freakin thing up! And somehow I’m eating rocks now? Is that a monster thing???” Aster asked, fear making her voice go staticy again.

Gaster looked a bit surprised, and said, “No... it’s not. Monsters can eat any magical food of course, regardless of form... but regular items need to be digestible. Rocks may be eaten to aid digestion, but not as a food source... Why are you trying to eat them anyways?”

“I’m not _trying,_ I _am_  eating them. I was actually trying to pick up an apple, but missed and absorbed a rock instead. But everything’s getting broken down anyways, so-”

“Broken down?” Gaster interrupted. “What do you mean?”

“Like... I can feel a space inside my body where there isn’t goop, and I assume that’s where the apples- or rocks- are. But the space gets smaller and smaller and eventually just... disappears. So I assume I’m digesting them...?”

“...that does sound similar to a monster’s digestion process... though one thing is wrong... can you not feel the objects inside you directly?”

“No... I can’t feel anything at all. Just my body, but barely even that. I feel like I’m floating through space... is this normal?? Just a side-effect of the goop? Or what? Do I need a humanoid body to feel stuff? What?!”

“...try forming a proper body, now that you’ve eaten,” Gaster said slowly. He doubted it would work, but he needed Aster to calm down.

“Okay...” Aster said, stretching upward again. She managed to pull herself to her normal height, and started separating out arms and legs. She managed to make tubes in place of her limbs, but couldn’t go more defined. Her face did reform enough to have a mouth though. “Well... better than before. Still no sense of touch.”

“Try eating more. Though if you are capable of eating rocks, could you leave the edibles for me?”

“Huh? Sure. Try the apples, they’re green but might be edible.”

 

Aster started looking for other stuff, and eventually shrugged and picked up a branch on the ground. It absorbed into her arm the same way the rock had, so she went along and picked up old branches, plants, and rocks, “eating” them. 

 

Meanwhile, Gaster picked the ripest and biggest apples he could find. He gathered up an armful, and moved back to where he had found the onions. He set the apples on a pile alongside the onions, parsnips, carrots and potatoes he had found. The root vegetables had managed to survive, but if any leafy plant had existed before it didn’t any longer. 

Gaster summon a shard of bone, wincing as he did, and started cutting up the vegetables. He had tried eaten them raw but found they barely gave more energy than it took to absorb them. He knew that cooked food always gave more energy, so he decided to make a hash of all the roots.

 

He gathered branches and lit a little fire, using two fire-rocks he had found. He wrapped up the chopped up vegetables in burdock leaves and left the concoction to cook. He carefully tended the fire, remembering the many times he had done this in the past. In his squadron, he had been one of the better fire-makers, so at the end of the day the other soldiers would gather wood while he lit the bonfire. After that they would sit around, joking and laughing about nonsense. They would laugh like it was the end of time, and there was nothing left but to enjoy what time you had with the few friends you could find. The soldiers drank, slapped backs and forgot, for a moment, the war that they were in.

Gaser smiled softly. He had never joined in the joking, but enjoyed it all the same. It was the only time he had truly felt alive, not as a war machine but as a person, a being with a real soul. He sighed. He knew he could never return to those times, nor did he wish to. But he wish he could laugh that freely again.

He snapped out of his reminiscing in time to finish cooking his hash, which he started eating. It tasted bland, as plain vegetates often did, but it was hot and filling. He mechanically ate all of it, feeling his soul burn brightly as it absorbed the food. His hands started to heal up, and the other little nicks over his bones repair themselves. The fire and food warmed him, and he eventually sat back, feeling full and content.

 

He stared at the fire, not thinking, until Aster walked up. He looked up, started, and saw her looking like ‘herself’ again. But he also noted a distinctly troubled look on her face.

Aster sat down, and made the movements to warm herself by the fire, but she held her hands much too close. Gaster saw the fire actually leap up and engulf her hands, but Aster didn’t flinch. 

She quietly said, “My body is repaired now. Everything is as it should be, as it was before.... or as close as I can make it.... But still... I cannot feel anything. Not even this fire. I thought... that maybe I just was too weak to feel... but it seems like this goop body simply can’t. I can’t feel anything... I can’t taste anything... I can’t smell anything either... I know you were making food, but I can’t smell it... I can’t smell the smoke either... just... nothingness...”

Aster’s form started to waver a bit, like she was fading away. Gaster sat up, concerned, but Aster continued talking. “I thought... I thought I would be... I dunno, normal. A person. Not... a blob in space... unable to feel... I can barely even see or hear, everything is staticy...”

Aster put her head in her hands and brokenly said, “I was such an idiot... I never... ever should have done this...”

“You had to do it to survive,” Gaster replied. “From what you told me, if you hadn’t become a goop monster, you would have been killed. We all have to do things we rather not... that we regret... but there’s no point saying “I shouldn't have done that.’ Just figure out how to live as you are, now.” 

“Maybe I should have just died... that would have been better...”

Gaster tensed and clenched his jaw. “Don’t speak nonsense. How can being a monster be worse than being dead? You’re alive, be grateful for it.”

Aster just laughed humorlessly. “It would be better for others if I was dead!”

She explained briefly about Sans and how she had screwed everything up. She ended by saying, “Mettaton was right, I should have just vanished...”

“You’d take the word of that prick over your own brother? Are you that stupid? Or that self-absorbed? Did your Sans not say that he couldn’t stand losing any more family members? And yet you would so quickly abandon him?”

“What else was I suppose to do? Every time I showed up, he got worse!”

“Stay. _Fix it!_  Correct your mistakes, not run away like a coward.”

“Well, I am a coward.” Aster retorted.

“And are you satisfied being that way?”

Aster slumped. “No...”

“Then fix it. Go back. Try and solve the problems you made. Even if you are incapable of fixing it, you have to at least make an attempt.”

“But how can I? Sans and Mett don’t want to talk to me, and Pap can’t even _see_  me...”

“I hardly think you’re invisible now.”

“Huh?” Aster asked.

Gaster sighed and rubbed his skull. “You have a _body_  now. I’d think they’d be able to see _that_.”

“I... oh, ya, I have a real body now! I forgot about that...”

“How did you-? Nevermind. Go back to your own world, your own time. As I will,” he said, standing up. “I’ve eaten enough to teleport now. Farewell, Aster.”

 

“Wait, Gaster-” Aster said, but Gaster just vanished. Aster looked curiously at the place he had been a second before. She could see a fine line in space, a little place where nothing was. She reached out to touch it, but before she could Gaster had teleported back. 

“I’m fairly certain teleportation does not work between worlds,” Aster said.

Gaster just glared at her. “I have realized this. I was disoriented from standing outside a village I frequented often as a child, in my own world.”

“You came here,” Aster said, motioning to the ruined village.

“To my world’s version, yes.”

“Then do you know why it’s so unnaturally dead? I’ve never seen a place without even moss growing in it.”

Gaster paused, and said slowly, “I do not know. After the soldiers killed the monsters, the village died with it. Their magic had sustained the place, and their deaths hung over the place like a miasma. But... nothing like that... should have happened here...”

“Even if it had, without magic it wouldn’t make any sense...”

They stood thinking for a few minutes, before Gaster shook his head and said, “We cannot figure it out with the information we have. I suppose we could research it, but I’d rather return to my home. Can you take us back to the void?”

“It would be interesting to see why...” Aster muttered. “But I won’t keep you. Alright, back to the void.”

 

She walked up to him, and linked arms with him. She started to fade away, but stopped when Gaster said, “Wait! You’re leaving without me.”

Aster opened to eyes and saw that while she looked transparent, Gaster looked as solid as ever. “Strange.... Maybe I need a better hold on you?”

Aster moved behind him and bear-hugged him. Gaster stiffened, almost reflexively summoning his Blaster, but he restrained himself. Aster started to fade out again, but kept her eyes opened and focused on ‘dragging’ Gaster with her. To her frustration, it didn’t work, and she faded back in again.

“Okay... this isn’t working. To get here, we were... fused... maybe that’s how it has to work...”

Gaster shuttered and sighed. “Just leave me a way to breath this time, will you?”

“Hey, I don’t like this any more than you,” Aster said. “It’s kinda creepy. Okay really creepy. But nothing else seems to work...”

“Stop stalling,” Gaster said.

Aster sighed, and turned back into a lump of goo. She moved forward and engulfed Gaster, leaving his head free. She was slightly worried that if his skull was completely exposed it would be left behind, so she put an “arm” over the top of his head.

“All right now, let’s go.” Gaster thought.

“Okay okay Mr. Impatient. Sorry for making sure you keep a head,” Aster replied.

Aster concentrated, and slowly faded out of the world. She felt at one point that Gaster was being left behind, but she just tightened her ‘grip’ on Gaster. 

After a few moments, they reappeared in the void, only to be slammed back by a string of purple light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mt. Itoi is a reference, nothing more. 
> 
> Exposition dump I know- I wanted to set the "ground rules" for this verse. Here seemed like a decent place...
> 
>  
> 
> ________
> 
> Sorry this is so late. Finals and visiting family ate away time.


	12. Echo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The duo face an imposing foe, another Gaster... but one that seemed even less together than the other two. Will they be able to beat this threat, or is this the end?

Aster and Bones flew across the void, landing with a thud that knocked them near senseless. Aster liquefied immediately, leaving Bones exposed to the attacker. 

He recovered quickly, summoning a blaster and firing it before he ever sat up. He opened his eyes, and looked to see who attacked him. He saw… nothing. Just the blackness of the void.

He got up, and whirled around when he heard cackling behind him. A blobby, white face staring at him, a few inches away. Bones instinctively stepped backwards, trying to teleport away. When that didn’t work, he blasted the figure again and leapt backward. 

When the light cleared, he saw the the figure just smiling at him, a curious look on his face. He hadn’t been injured by the blast at all, it seemed. 

Bones stepped back, a tense look on his face. The more he started at the figure, the more it seemed familiar. An oval, white head; black robes; and skeletal hands with holes in them. But…

His face had the same scars Bones had. He subconsciously traced the lines, and the strange figure did the same, before his face split apart into an eerie smile. 

The figure turned more spectral, and rushed forward at Bones. Bones dodged to the side, and tried firing his Blaster at the figure again. The figure momentarily  glitched, before reforming back into a standing position.  _It’s must be a magical projection,_  Bones thought.  _Or a phantom. I’ll need to adjust my Blaster for this._

He called the Blaster back towards him, and place his hand on it. He switched it from Justice mode to Determination mode. DT, the anti-magic force of the world, could hurt any magical creature. The Blasters eyes changed to pure red, and it morphed into a a dragon skull. 

He readied an attack, when a portion of the void suddenly hit him, knocking him back again. The figure-  _Gaster_ , Bones thought- rushed towards him again, reaching his arm out. Bones yelped, and instinctively summoned a formation of sharpened bones to block Gaster.

The phantom seemed to phase through the bones, but suddenly stopped and cried out. It’s voice chilled Bones, as it was more like static than anything real. He got up while the phantom drew back, and saw to his surprise a soul left behind, impaled on the bone. It faded for a moment before it flew back to the phantom.

_It has a soul? … Well, then… It can be KILLED._

Bones smiled, and summoned a long, spear-like bone with a blood-red tip. He activated his lock-on magic, focusing on a soul similar to his own. Sure enough, he saw the phantom’s soul, though it looked rather odd. It was white, not grey like a monster’s should be, and looked like it was … shattered? Only a small chunk stayed together, with the rest of the soul- or Bones assumed it was the rest- floating around it like a cloud. 

That would make it harder to hit, and also made Bones wonder if the phantom could be killed at all.  Still, the being had attacked him, and he didn’t intent to let it try again. Even if he couldn’t kill it, he might be able to scare it off. Bones set his face, a red glow coming over his hands and summoned bone.

His threw the spear, and as expected the creature dodged. His Blaster had made it’s way behind the phantom though. It fired a shot, which seemed to dissipate the monster for a second. Bones tried to see it, but even it’s soul had vanished… or shattered so much he couldn’t identify it.

“Interesting… you can use bones as well as a Blaster… well then… perhaps it is my turn now…” A quiet voice said behind him.

Bones whipped around, and once more saw the phantom looking at him. It smiled, head cocked, and then it summoned a barrage of bones and threw them at Bones.

He dodged, but cried out as bones from behind hit him, one managing to hit his soul. His soul glowed a bright red, repairing the damage, but Bones could feel his physical form wavering for a second.  _Damn it! I cannot survive many more direct attacks. I need to be more careful_.

The phantom was still staring at him, an eerie smile on it’s face. It shrugged, then raised his hand. Bones recognized too late the purple glow in his eye, and found himself surrounded by purple lines. 

 _Perseverance magic,_  Bones thought.  _Interesting. But not difficult to deal with._

Bones  hopped on one of the lines, intending to jump between them and avoid the phantom that way, but cried out. The line briefly glowed light blue, and returned to purple.

_Patience magic? And Perseverance? That combination… command magic?_

Bones stared at Gaster, lost in thought for a moment. He shook his head, and quickly leapt off the line again, wincing at the pain. He turned towards Gaster and summoned a spinning ring of red bones around him, drawing them in. 

Gaster quickly melted into the floor, then appearing behind Bones. Gaster summoned a blaster, a small mouse skull with a long tail, and threw it at Bones.

Bones felt the blaster hit him in the skull, and he instinctively raised his hand to his head. He turned, trying to spot Gaster, but the phantom had moved away from him and just stood, watching. Bones felt something at his neck, and looked down to see the Blaster’s tail wrapped around his spinal cord. “What? Off!” he cried, trying to pull the Blaster off. The Blaster’s eyes glowed violet, and Bones eyes briefly flashed violet as well.

 

Farther away in the void, Aster clawed her way out of the goop. “What the heck was that?!” she said, looking around. 

The void seemed hazier than before, the ground covered in a fine layer of static. This concerned her, but what concerned her more was the white blob in the distance.  _That must be Bones. But what’s with him?_

She saw Bones standing thirty feet away form her, just staring at the “ceiling.” She looked around, but didn’t see anything that could have caused the her to dissolve. Worried about shadow monsters, Aster called out, “Hey Bones, snap out of it! We need to get out of here!”

When Bones didn’t respond, Aster ran over towards him. But before she could reach him, a figure materialized out of the void in front of her. Aster skidded to a stop lest she hit it, and just stared.“Who  _are_  you?” she asked. “Are you the void leader?”

The figure cocked his head at her. “Void… leader…? No… my name… is W.D. Gaster…”

Aster looked surprised for a moment, then shrugged. Gasters and the void seemed to go together like PB&J. Though this one looked… melted.

Aster had to ask. “Are you okay? Your body looks a little… I mean… how has the void affected you…?”

She immediately regretted her words as Gaster’s face twisted into an insane grimace, and he let out a shriek. He glitched out, before appearing behind Aster. 

Aster barely saw him before the her goop body pulled her back into the void. Just in time, too, as Gaster swiped at where she had stood. He gave another shriek Aster could hear even undergoop.

She moved away, closer to where she saw Bones, before popping up out of the void again. She quickly ran the rest of the distance, and started pulling his arm.

“Come on Bones, we got to get out of here!” she said, trying to drag him along. Bones didn’t respond at all, merely sliding along the surface of the void like a statue. 

Aster quickly looked around for Gaster, and when she didn’t see him she turned towards Bones. She squinted, trying to see any details besides the white blob that he looked like. She soon saw something odd- a bulge on his neck. Curious, she reached forward and touched it, then flinched as the shape turned and hissed at her, it’s violet eyes blazing.

Aster’s vision focused, and she saw that the thing was a Blaster that had coiled around Bones’ neck.  _That must be why he isn’t moving,_  she thought. She reached forward again grabbed the Blaster, pulling it off him.  The thing hissed, and tightened it’s tail until Aster heard an audible  _crack_.

“Oh no you don’t!” she said. She grabbed the end of the Blaster’s tail with her other hand, and pulled it straight and away from Bones. As soon as she did, Bones started to wobble, and Gaster appeared behind her again. Aster flung the Blaster away and into the void. Gaster summoned another Blaster, this one with it’s jaw open and glowing purple. Aster quickly fell forward, knocking Bones and herself into the void.

Once in the goop, she grabbed Bones hand and pulled him through the stuff. She could sense his distress, and after a couple dozen feet she rushed up, pulling Bones up with her.

He fell on his knees, coughing up the goop that filled his ribcage. The stuff slowly fell off him and back into the void, leaving him empty again. He then turned his skull towards and Aster and asked, “What the hell was that?!”

“He was going to attack! It was the only thing I could think of!” Aster replied.

As if summoned, Gaster once again appeared in front of them. He reached towards Bones soul, it’s owner too tired to react.

Aster yelped, and instinctively summoned her Blaster, firing a beam at Gaster. It didn’t seem to hurt him, if anything, it made him look more solid than before.

Gaster flinched, and retreated backwards a bit. This bought Bones enough time to get up and stand besides Aster. 

“Aster. I highly advise you do not use your Blaster, as it will only heal him,” Bones said. He summoned his three of his own Blasters, and set all of them to fire at Gaster. 

Gaster was just standing there, clutching at his soul. When the blasts hit him, he screamed again, but this time he sounded far more alive than before. Aster winced.

“Bones… maybe we shouldn’t kill him…” she said.

Bones turned towards her, annoyed. “He has attacked the both of us, attempted to steal my soul and control my mind. Exactly why should I spare him?”

Aster was silent for a moment, then looked back to Gaster. “Something isn’t right with him… I mean, look at him. He’s glitching in and out of existence…” 

Indeed, Gaster was rapidly glitching between forms, at one moment smiling and the other holding his head. He seemed to recover enough to raise his hand and summon more purples lines though, boxing the other two in.

Bones looked at the lines, face taunt. “And for your concern, he has now trapped us.”

“Well, I can always slide under the goop to get us out…”Aster said.

Bones instead summoned a bone and used it to vault over the lines. 

“Or, you can do that…” Aster said, before sliding under lines herself. When she popped back up, she saw Bones summoning more Blasters.

“Bones, wait, please. Let me try talking to him first. I can always escape if he tries to kill me. Maybe I can convince him to stop…? Or find out why he’s attacking?”

“Is he not one of the creatures of the void? Creatures that, I might add, exist to consume souls and are utterly without reason.”

“What? No. He’s a Gaster,” Aster said.

“A Gas-? …Hmm… I see. Exceptional circumstances must have driven him into this demonic shape. But even so, he seems intent on destroying us. I doubt you could reason with him.”

“Well, I have to try! We can’t just kill him without  _trying_  to reason with him.”

Bones looked at her. “Are you always so charitable to your attackers?”

“Hey, I helped you didn’t I?” Aster said.

“If I recall,  _you_  attacked  _me_ , not the other way around.”

“…still.”

Bones sighed. “It would at least afford me time to study him more. But understand this. I have no intentions of letting a dangerous creature like him exist, even if he is a Gaster. If he cannot be convinced to stop, I must destroy him.”

“…It’s not like he can do much damage here, Bones. The void is pretty damn empty.”

“Empty, says you. When three Gaster’s stand together against all probability. How many others would appear here? What would be their fate? Not everyone has your abilities Aster. Would you doom others, for sake of your pacifism?”

“…let me talk to him. I’m sure… there has to be another way.”

“Sometimes life isn’t that simple, human. But if you wish to speak, go before he moves again.”

Aster looked around, and saw that Gaster had moved from his current position and now stood off to the side. 

Aster walked towards him slowly, hands up. She didn’t want to appear threatening and potentially trigger an attack.

“Um… sir… Mr. Gaster…” Aster started. Gaster turned towards her, a sad look on his face.

Aster swallowed, and continued. “Um… please… could you tell me… why are you attacking us? What did we do… what’s wrong?”

“A human…” Gaster muttered, looking away. “Though it’s body… similar to my own… no. She would not do…”

“Do? What you mean?” Aster asked.

Gaster looked back at her. “300 years… I have stayed… I need a SOUL… I need to…  _escape_ …” 

“You… you’ve been here 300 years?” Aster asked, shocked. “Then… no wonder. But why do you need a soul to leave? I mean, I thought the void was usually inescapable…”

“I… can appear… but not seen… not known… I can’t… I  _won’t…_ to live like that… _”_

Aster drew in her breath. “Ohhh, you’re like me! You can leave the void, but are just a phantom in the real world?” Gaster didn’t respond, so Aster continued. “But… taking someone else’s soul won’t fix that… I think it’s just a byproduct of being void-ified… but hey, some people can see us I think. My Sans could… maybe we can figure out a way to make others see us?”

“Sans… 

sans… 

 _sans!”_ Gaster said, glitching out again. Aster stepped back, confused. What had she said? Did Gaster not like his Sans? 

“Destroyed….

“Unhappy…

“Not mine…

“ _NOT MINE…!” G_ aster shouted. He appeared around the void at seeming random, looking more insane by the second. Aster tried to follow his movements, but it was impossible. 

Then he appeared right next to her, and a small white patch opened up beside him. Aster looked at it curiously. To her shock, she saw her Sans and Papyrus, sitting on their green couch and laughing. But… no, it wasn’t them at all. The heights were wrong, and the hair. 

And the white patch… it was like a window. A window to another world… but not her world.

“This… those aren’t mine…” Aster said. Gaster nodded, then cackled. 

“Never right… never them… I’ve searched forever… but again… and again… “

The window closed and re-opened, this time showing… two skeletons? A short one in a blue jacket, and an tall one in some kind of costume. Aster jolted, as she recognized the shorter one’s jacket- Sans’ had the same one. Was this what the monster versions of Sans and Pap looked like?

“Are those Sans and Pap?” she asked. Gaster nodded, then pointed at the window.

The window flashed, and what it showed sickened Aster to the core. A human, knife drawn, striking Pap down, while he just…smiled. Sans, collapsing over his brothers dust, nearly hurling. Sans watching the human, eventually fighting him… being struck down.

The window flashed again and again, the two brothers again and again. Sometimes they fought the human, sometimes they hung out with it. Sometimes they just hung out. Every Sans and Pap was different, even if the differences were as small as which Sans had what stain on his jacket. It made Aster’s head spin.

“There’s so many of them…” she muttered.

“So many… yes… but never… my own…”

“…but I still don’t get it… why would someone else’s soul help that?” Aster couldn’t let the subject die. She had to convince him to stop trying to take their souls… and that did appear to be his goal… somehow.

Gaster responded by pulling his soul out of his chest. Aster gasped at the sight of it- it was a barely-intact cloud of dust. 

Gaster leaned forward and quickly grabbed Aster’s soul, pulling it out of her. Aster gasped, collapsing. She looked up, and saw Gaster turning her soul over and over in his hands.

“No… this won’t do… not at all… but you see girl… how weak my soul… is…”

He held his own soul in one hand and Aster’s in another. Aster saw his point- his soul barely glowed, and wasn’t even intact. Her own glowed brightly, a solid heart that beat softly. 

“I… see… your soul… barely exists… but the windows…” Aster paused, then something clicked. “You can’t get them to work… because your magic… is weak?”

Gaster nodded. He released Aster’s soul, and it quickly flew back to her body. She stood up, still shaking from the pain.

“I must… get back… see my sons… I must… I  _will go back!”_  

Gaster vanished again, and appeared behind Bones. Bones didn’t have enough time to react, as Gaster reached forward and grabbed his soul. Bones gave a strangled cry, then collapsed.

“Bones!” Aster shouted, running over towards him. She stopped when she saw Gaster popping up again, closer to her. Aster’s eyes flashed blue, and she growled, “You will  _pay_  for that.”


	13. To Save A Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faced with her friend’s impending death, Aster tries everything to get Bones back...

Aster immediately sank into the floor and shot closer to Gaster. She doubted he would stay in one place, but this way he couldn’t dodge.

She popped up out of the void, a few feet behind him. She ran forward, intending to rip his soul- and Bones stolen soul- out of his chest. But before she could, Gaster turned his head around and glitched out.

Aster skidded to a stop, rapidly looking around the void for him. She couldn’t see him anywhere. 

Suddenly, to her right, came a beam of purple light. Aster yelped as the beam pierced her body and soul, and quickly moved to the side. The beam hurt, but only when it directly touched her soul. Aster cocked her head, then shrugged. She ran up the line, careful to keep the line within her body but not her soul. It would lead her right to Gaster.

She finally saw Gaster, a blurry blob in the distance, just standing there. His head looked like it was tilted in surprised, but Aster couldn’t be sure.

Gaster was watching her, wondering how she could move through the line, despite it having patience magic infused in it. Or rather, how the girl seemed to be unhurt doing so. He studied her for a minute, then eventually decided that her body was immune to the effect of his magic. 

It seemed her body was similar to his own- being an embodiment of the void itself. “Bothersome,” he muttered. “I have no wish to harm her… perhaps my command magic will have an effect.”

Gaster closed his eyes and reappeared behind the girl- Aster if he heard them correctly. He summoned a small blaster and commanded it to move over to her.

Aster saw the Blaster coming behind her, and immediately ducked back under the void again.

“Sh-” Gaster said, then shook his head. He was wasting time. He opened up one of his windows, and started to search for his world. With the other Gaster’s soul- though the girl had called him Bones- he could control the window far more effectively. He started searching the worlds

Aster popped up near him, but paused before moving over. Gaster was just watching the window. He seemed… calmer. His form had solidified, and now he held both his hands clasped behind his back, a picture of calm consideration. Had Aster not known better, she might have thought him a different Gaster entirely. 

Aster paused and rubbed her chin. He would be easier to talk to in this calm state, but she needed Bones’ soul back. She glanced over at his skeleton, still lying in the void. It seemed fine without it’s soul, but heaven’s knew how long that would last. She recalled Bones telling her during his long lecture that monster’s bodies turned to dust if their souls were destroyed. The fact that his body had remained was a comfort, even if it was a small one.

Aster decided to creep up on Gaster. She nearly reached him when he looked over his shoulder, and gave a scowl. 

“Sorry Aster, but I cannot let you take his soul back” Gaster said.

“It isn’t yours to start with!” Aster said. “What makes you think you can steal someone’s soul?”

Gaster turned back to his window. “I need it in order to find my home. I will release it once I have finished.”

“And you really think he’ll last that long? How long can a soul survive without it’s body?”

Windows straightened for a minute. “I… had not considered that possibility… hmm…”

Gaster rubbed his chin. “He has a rather determined soul… he should be able to survive for the equivalent of one earth year… though I do not know the state of his soul before I absorbed it… any injury would decrease it’s lifetime…” he muttered.

“One year. Okay. You haven’t found your home in  _three hundred_  years, why do you think you’ll manage to  _now?”_ Aster asked.

Gaster flinched. “My magic is less… erratic… now that my soul isn’t as fragmented. It shouldn’t take me much time to find my home…”

“You don’t know that though,” Aster said.

“What should I do then?” Gaster asked, turned towards her. “I have been here so long. I am not certain how much longer I can endure this silence.”

“Silence?” Aster asked. “But what about the Void Leader? Or the void itself? It’s not that quiet… well, okay literally quiet but it still “talks”.” 

“That’s the second time you have mentioned the “void leader”… I am afraid I do not know who you are referring to.”

“It’s… this voice, it seems to control the void… hasn’t the void ever…. I dunno, attacked you? Changed at all?”

Gaster shook his head. “The void has been true to it’s name. Silent, and still. The only sights I’ve seen have been through my windows.”

“Hmm… I suppose… this place is different from my void…” Aster muttered. Louder, she said, “But it doesn’t matter. Please, give Bones’ soul back. Would you really kill someone? Even if it meant going home… are you okay with killing another monster?” 

Gaster looked away. “I have… never taken a life… and I have no intentions to start now. I will relinquish his soul when I have finished. Surely it will not take me long…”

He turned back to his window and started searching again. Aster sighed, and shook her head. She couldn’t exactly argue with him, he obviously had a decent reason to this. But using someone else’s soul… it just wasn’t right. But how to convince him?

“How… how are you okay with using someone else’s soul?”

Gaster flinched again. “I will do what I must… as I always have…. Though,” he said, sharper this time, “I would progress quicker if I wasn’t  _interrupted_  so frequently.”

“…I will not allow you to kill my-” Aster cut off. Bones was not her  _friend_ , why would he be? “Another person, even if it’s for your own sake.” She lunged forward, intent on actually grabbing his soul this time.

Gaster sighed, and summoned his Blaster again. He had it fire a blast of paths at Aster. She cried out as the paths hit her soul, but after a moment pushed pass the pain, ready to move. But before she could take a step, the small Blaster coiled itself around her body. 

The eyes of the Blaster glowed violet, and Aster soon heard Gaster’s voice in her head. “Stop… remain perfectly still.” he said, though the real Gaster had returned to his screen and paid her no mind.

Aster through back, “No! I will not! Now let me go!”

Gaster started. He looked over from his screen and asked verbally, “How did you do that?”

Aster thought back, “Telepathy. Ish. I’m not sure how it works. Now let me go!”

“No,” Gaster replied. He turned back to his window and thought, “It must be a side-effect of the Blaster’s mental connection… Hmm…”

Aster heard The Blaster/Gaster’s voice again, saying, “Quiet. Do not speak.”

“I can think without talking you know,” Aster thought at him. “And I told you, telepathy, not magic Blasters. How do ya think I talk with the void?”

Gaster groaned, and head-screened. He needed to be more specific. 

“ Be QUIET. No thinking, no talking, no communication!” the B/Gaster said. 

Aster did indeed fall silent for a few minutes, and Gaster returned to steadily scanning worlds. He was in the general vicinity of his home world now, and now the challenge was finding the specific world that was his own among the many similar to it.

He twirled around though when a Blaster’s beam hit him in the back. “What was that?” he said.

He saw Aster, silent but glaring at him, and her Blaster circling protectively around her. He wondered why she simply didn’t blast away his blaster with her own, but before he could ask he was hit again. And again, and again. Oddly, the blasts did not hurt him at all, but they did temporarily blind him every time. 

“Aster, stop that. I cannot work if you continually attack me!” He wondered if that was not Aster’s intentions. If so… “You will receive Bones’ soul far quicker if you let me  _work_. I will be finished soon.”

He turned around and started scanning again, but now he felt… odd. He subconsciously rubbed his chest, his soul now aching. He did not feel weaker from Aster’s attacks, if anything he felt far stronger. Yet… 

Too late, he realized what this meant. His eyes widened, as another blast hit him from behind.

Aster watched Gaster, focusing on his increasingly-visible soul. She could sense Bones distress faintly through the mental connection with Gaster, and it grew more violent every minute. This alarmed Aster, more so because she couldn’t even think to calm herself down. She could only follow her instincts. And her instincts were to heal. From deep within her came need to fix, to restore something to it’s true form. 

One thought slipped through the command lain on her. “If Gaster’s soul is healed.. maybe he’ll release Bones.”

So Aster continually fired her Blaster at Gaster, focusing on his soul and on restoring it. She fired in waves, allowing Gaster time between each one to catch his breath and potentially release Bones.

During on such pause, Gaster collapsed. Aster, concerned, dismissed her Blaster and waited.

Gaster clutched at his soul, and drew it out of his body. He saw the cloud circling around Bones soul, drawing strength from it. But his soul had started to form over top of it, white patches that looked like crystals. It hurt… quite a bit… a monster could not absorb another’s soul he knew, yet his was attempting to. Or encase it, which was worse. 

“Aster…” he gasped, “Stop. You’re only hurting the both of us… a monster cannot absorb another’s soul truly… you will destroy him or me if you continue…”

Aster just cocked her head, not understanding. Gaster mentally kicked himself- he had commanded her to not even think. He groaned, and dismissed his Blaster.

Once he had, Aster collapsed, but only for a moment. She got up and ran over to the collapsed Gaster.

“What can I do? What’s wrong? I thought… that would  _fix_  you, not harm you!” Aster said.

Gaster stared at her, then started to laugh despite himself. “You would try and fix me? After I attacked you?”

“You…” Aster paused. “I just want my friend back. And I don’t want you to die either. I thought… this way I could save everyone.”

“…your intentions are noble, if misguided. All you have done… is make my soul worse.”

“…it was all I could think of… and I could feel Bones distress… Windows… he won’t last much longer I think.”

“Windows?” Gaster said, confused. “Oh, a nickname. As for Bones… what do you mean, you sensed his distress?”

“When the Blaster was connected to me… I could hear your thoughts… and sense Bones. He was in pain…”

Widnows frowned, and concentrated on his soul. He could feel nothing but the pain from Aster’s blasts. “I don’t sense anything…”

“It might be because I have telepathy… but please. Release him. He won’t last long. I’ll fix up your soul afterwards… if having Bones there is messing up the restoration, maybe it would work if he was gone?”

“Restoration? That magic… that would explain it…”

“Whatya mean?” Aster asked.

“Restoration magic tries to reform objects, regardless if those objects  _can_  be reformed or if it would be wise to. Thus it was “reforming” my soul on top of Bones’.”

“…messed up again…I’m really sorry.” Aster muttered. “But will you do it? Please? I promise, I’ll still fix you.”

Windows looked at her, but his gaze softened. “You are a  _strange_  human. You’d help someone whose only harmed you…you could easily kill me you know, as helpless as I am right now.”

Aster jerked. “I would  _never_  kill  _anyone_!” she cried. 

Windows flinched at her intensity. It seemed the subject was a sore one with this human… “… but still, you don’t have to save me, or even try. You could steal his soul away.”

“I tried that at first,” Aster pointed out. “It didn’t work. So plan B: convince you to let him go by healing you. Okay, that was plan A, so this is plan… C? Convince, steal, heal? Hey that’s catchy.”

Windows shook his head. “Catchy… really. Well, I won’t argue more.. Here…” 

Windows placed both hands on his soul, and slowly pulled it off of Bones. He winced as the hardened parts came off and instantly dusted, following the rest of the cloud. Once Bones soul was free, he offered it to Aster.

Aster took it, and quickly turned around and ran back to Bones body. There, she knelt down, and put his soul back in his ribcage. She sat back, worried it wouldn’t work, when suddenly Bones coughed, and tried to sit up.

“Hey, lie still for a second would ya, you’ll hurt yourself. It’s okay- Windows won’t attack again.” Aster said.

Bones seemed a little out of it, his red pupil darting around the void. “Must… stop… not… safe…”

Aster sighed, and stood back up. As much as she wanted to make sure Bones was okay, she needed to heal Windows like she said. Bones at least just seemed groggy, not hurt.

She jogged back to Windows, now a pale ghost on the floor. Like this, Aster could clearly see that his body… wasn’t one. It was almost transparent, showing the staticy void floor underneath. He had said they were both made of the void, but it seemed his void and hers were far different.

Aster knelt down beside him and summoned her Blaster again. “Okay Windows, I’m gonna to try and heal you now, okay? Can you summon your soul for me?”

Windows eyes were dark, and he seemed unconscious. But slowly, a white cloud started to form in front of his chest, though Aster could see it wasn’t close to his entire soul. 

Still, she had to start. Hopefully the rest of his soul would appear if part of it was healed? “Sorry if this hurts…” she muttered. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on making a cloud of healing magic. The Blaster whirled, and emitted a cloud of it’s own which engulfed Window’s soul. Aster opened her eyes, and tried to see Windows soul through the magic cloud.

Windows soul started to glow purple, and Aster saw to her surprise bits of his soul far away, almost out of range of her vision. What was it doing over there? She lacked a method of forcing the soul to move, so she could only hope it would come over on it’s own. On top of that, Windows body seemed to have vanished again, though Aster couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just a ghost and that was why. She shook her head- she couldn’t do anything about any of that.

 _Purple…_  she thought.  _What did Bones say that color was…?_

Aster absentmindedly pulled the relevant paper out of her chest and scanned it. The Blaster continued to emit magical energy, and as it didn’t need her direct concentration she could read. Finally she found purple. “Ah… Perseverance… that would explain it… he’s trying to endue this…”

Aster put the paper away and looked at Windows soul. It was formed into an vague heart-shape, but it had chunks missing. It still glowed bright purple, though, though occasionally a flash of light blue would pass over it. 

Aster watched for a few minutes but didn’t see a change. It seemed the soul wasn’t going to reform more than it had, no matter how much magic she used. Her own soul was starting to hurt, and she was afraid of using up too much magic. “Okay Windows, that’s the best I can do. I’m stopping now.”

Aster dismissed the shuffled back a little bit. Windows soul glowed, turning white, and slowly his body appeared around it. His eyes formed last, at first blazing violent and then settling back to black with white pupils.

Windows breathed heavily, trying to collect himself enough to speak. Eventually, he said, “Thank… you… Aster… that is… about as good… as anyone could do…”

“…Glad it was helpful… are you still in pain…?”

“It… will pass… my soul… is not used to foreign magic… even the magic of a Gaster… how is… the other one… by the way?”

“Bones? Oh…” Aster looked over at him. She frowned, concerned, when she saw him still lying down. “I thought he was just groggy… but he hasn’t moved… Imma going to check on him,” she said, getting up. 

She walked over to Bones, then jumped back as he summoned a Blaster in front of her. “Easy Bones! I’m a friend!”

Bones rolled his head to look at her. “A friend. When you fraternize with the enemy? Leave me here to die?”

“You’re dying?!” Aster said, rushing over to him. She knelt down, examined Bones. His soul, clear to see, glowed red and yellow in patches, looking like it was on fire. She couldn’t see anything wrong with it. She looked over the rest of his body, seeing no injury except his neck.

“I forgot about your neck… here, let me fix that,” she said. She summoned her Blaster again, wincing in pain. She was definitely overdoing the magic. But she gritted her teeth and quickly healed Bones’ neck.

Bones watched her, wary but not willing to attack her when she was so close to him. “You’re a human. Why are you helping me? If you intent to pry information out of me, you are a fool. I will never break to a freak like you.”

Aster flinched at his choice of insult, then said, “Information? What are you talking about?”

“I will tell you nothing. You humans will have to discover the camp on your own, I would never betray my fellow monsters.”

“Camp…?” Aster asked, before it clicked. “Bones, where are you?”

“Do you take me for a fool? We are in a cave in Mt. Ebbot. I’m surprised you humans found our storerooms, who tipped you off?”

Aster shook her head. “Bones… we’re in the void. A place between worlds. Snap out of it, you’re stuck in the past. The war’s long over…”

“The war over…? The void…” Bones trailed off, then closed his eyes. He mentally went through events, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. He had been attacked by a dark creature… he had been attacked from behind, his soul ripped from his chest…taken away… only for the attacker to fall, and his soul be restored… but then… that had been at night, but not… when he awoke there was light. A fire had been burning. This… wasn’t now…

Bones blinked his eyes open. “Apologies Aster. These events… were similar to ones before.”

Aster nodded. “No need for apologies, I get it. Somewhat. But seriously, are you hurt? I don’t have much magic left, but I can heal you. Or try to.”

“…my soul will need time to recover, but not from injury. Nothing can help but time.”

Aster nodded again. “Okay. Time we have.”

Bones lied still for a moment, then pushed himself into sitting position. “Now- what do we do about  _him?”_  he said, pointing to Windows, who stood a bit behind Aster.

Aster turned around to look and said, “… we help him get home.”


	14. Getting Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As tempers finally settle, the Gasters set their sights on their common goal: getting home, and fixing what they left...

“ _No”_ Bones snarled, sitting up for a second before collapsing again. He glared at Aster, and said, “Absolutely not. After he tried to kill me? Are you serious human? He deserves to be killed, not saved.”

Aster flinched, then said, “Look, I know what he did was horrible… it was unforgivable. But he was just trying to get home Bones…”

“That is no excuse. Stealing another monster’s  _soul?_ Nothing can justify that.”

“Have you never done something desperate, because it was the only solution to a problem?” Windows asked, having floated over behind them. They both jumped, then looked at each other.

“…I fail to see the connection…” Bones muttered, but shifted uneasily at the words. He looked off, apparently thinking about something else entirely.

“I… yes. But I hated it. I  _still_  hate it. I wish… if I could go back and change it… I would…” Aster said, a little lost in thought. She shook her head, then said, “But I see what you mean Windows. Taking Bones soul… you thought that was the only way to get home, right?”

Windows nodded. “I have searched… and searched… and searched for my home, for years without measure. I cannot find it… my soul is too weak… I knew a strong soul would allow me to find it.”

“And did you then?” Bones asked sharply. “Since you took mine, did you find your world?”

“I found the general vicinity, yes. Not the particular strand… but it should be a short search now. A few years, perhaps, but that is time I have.”

Bones was silent for a minute. “Well. I am glad I could be of service to you. Though I would have  _greatly preferred discussing this beforehand_.” He pulled himself up into a sitting position to better glare at Windows.

“Would you have actually agreed if he did Bones?” Aster asked. “I might have, but would you?”

“You’re no saint Aster,” Bones snapped. 

“I… was not myself…” Windows said, interrupting their bickering. “I had only a fraction of my soul whole… it altered my thinking. Under normal circumstances… I would never attack someone as I had…. but I realize this is worthless to say. You would not believe my words, and even if you had, what would be the use? My actions were still unforgivable.

“I instead propose an alternate solution. Since I cannot undo what I have done, perhaps I could instead redeem my actions. Is there a way, Dr. Gaster, for me to repay my debt to you?”

“Doctor?” Bones asked, surprised. “I had not considered that fact so obvious. But as for your question…” Bones trailed off, and thought for a few minutes, rubbing his chin with one hand. 

“I still need to return to my home world. Since this girl,” he said, motioning towards Aster, “seemed incapable of directing us correctly, perhaps you could be of assistance. I would consider that adequate payment.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Aster asked. “It isn’t my fault I can only go back to my world. Or only know how. I’m not exactly a magic master.”

“Wait a moment, if you would,” Windows said. “Am I to understand you can leave this realm?” he asked, turning towards Aster.

“Uh… yes?” she said. “I don’t know why, but I can phase in and out of here. It’s how I  _got_  here initially to be honest. Didn’t you notice us pop in?”

“…I did see you two appear, yes. I had thought you had fallen in the void, as I had.”

“How  _did_  you get here anyways?” Bones asked. “Large explosion as well?”

Windows flinched violently. “You… could say that… but I think the explosion must have been different… your’s left you with a physical form, at least.”

“Physical-” Bones started. He narrowed his eyes and stared at Windows, then they grew wide as he said, “You’re… nothing but a ghost… a soul without a body…”

Windows nodded. “I… had thought… it was obvious.”

“It…” Bones started. He sighed, and said, “It was obvious you were a phantom. I had thought you had  _always_  been this way, and was merely a ghostly monster. Considering that a human version of myself exists,” he said, motioning towards Aster, “a ghost monster didn’t seem so unlikely.”

Windows was quiet for a moment. “I can see your reasoning. But… this is not my true form… I once looked exactly like you.”

Bones and Windows both grew quiet, not quiet able to meet each others gaze. They seemed lost in though. 

Aster jumped in. “Guess I’m just the odd one out then!” She knew it was stupid, but she wanted the other two to stop brooding. They seemed to just be making themselves unhappy, thinking about it. “But uh, back to original topic I guess? I can get us all out of here. It’s directions that I suck with.”

Windows smiled wanly. “ I  _can_  leave the void, so you need not worry about me on that account. I have simply been unable to find my home…”

“If you could leave, why would you stay here?” Bones asked. “Even if it wasn’t your world… I’d think anyplace would be better than here.”

“… not… if you cannot be seen… or heard… or seem to exist at all… or just leave a small room. I can leave the void, but I don’t exist in any other world.”

“…Just like me,” Aster said. “When I first went back… without this goop body… I was just a ghost. Unseen… unremembered. It was… the void is almost better, for all it’s quietness. …you don’t remember as keenly what you’ve lost.”

Windows nodded slowly. “Yes… though… I also rather not become attached to a world that is not my own. I wish to see my own boys, not the universe’s pale comparisons. Even if I were to leave… I would be no closer to finding my home…”

“…I would just settle in the first kindly world,” Bones said. “But I have no strong ties to my world. I simply wish to return so I can complete my work.”

“Breaking the Barrier,” Windows said.

Bones looked a bit surprised, then replied, “Yes. As I am the only one who can, I am not comfortable leaving beforehand.”

“You do not believe Asgore will break the Barrier?” Windows asked.

“That old fool! He would never. He is spineless, weak. He would rather be killed than ever free monsterkind,” Bones said.

“…you are unkind to the King… he only tries his best, despite how much pain his actions cause him… it is not quite as simple as you put it, freeing monsters,” Windows said.

“Simple? There’s nothing so simple as killing humans. He need only collect the four remaining and we’d all be free. But he never will. He’s far too spineless.”

“Killing humans? Barrier? What the hell are you two talking about?” Aster asked.

The two doctors looked at each other. They seemed to be debating who should tell the human. “.. it all started a long time ago,” Windows said.

He filled Aster in on the important details, about the war, Barrier, Chara and Asriel, and the King’s declaration. Aster absorbed it, eyes wide but not interrupting. After Windows finished, she sat thinking for a few minutes. Then she said, “…and is there no way of breaking the Barrier without killing people…?”

“That is what I was attempting to do,” Windows and Bones said simultaneously. They looked at each other and nervous chuckled a little.

“Asgore will never go through with his plan, you see,” Bones said.

“Even if we were to be freed, there would still be problems,” Windows said. 

“So what’s your plan?” Aster asked brightly.

The two looked uncomfortable, and looked away. Windows eventually said, “I’d… rather not discuss it…”

Aster was a bit disappointed, but she said, “Okay, it doesn’t matter too much. Well, not to me at least. But I guess… you two really need to get back. To help your worlds.” 

They nodded. Bones added, “I am also concerned about the explosion that threw me here. It may have blow out the CORE entirely, and that would open up a whole realm of new issues I would need to attend to immediately.”

“I had not thought about the CORE’s stability…” Windows muttered. “But my followers should be able to repair damages. Have you no assistants?”

“I did, but the CORE wasn’t stable when I left. They could barely keep it running under normal circumstances, much less if something vital were damaged. I suppose they could at least keep it from melting down, but only I knew how the magical converter worked.”

“Hmm… it would appear your world is far younger than my own… I have not had that issue in a century.”

Bones just stared. “Century. How  _old_  are you?”

“…I was three hundred and sixty-four years old when I fell… though I am not sure how many centuries I have spent here…”

Bones shook his head. “Three… hundred… and here I thought I was the older one…”

“Why’d you think you were older?” Aster asked.

“…because I saw the War… and from the way he talked about it… I knew Gaster hadn’t. He lacked the venom…”

“…not everyone holds a grudge from the War, even those who saw it…” Windows said. “But you are correct about my lack of involvement. The War was a two century before I was born…”

“Maybe the old fool doesn’t hold a grudge, but I certainly do,” Bones snapped. “Humans destroyed our entire world, and for what? Nothing. No reason. A pointless suspicion, based on the actions of  _one monster_. For one’s faults, they would destroy our entire kind. I will not soon forget that.”

“How long has it been for you?” Windows asked.

“…I was an adolescent during the war… it has been just under a century since then.”

Windows looked a little surprised, but then his expression softened. “I see. The wounds… are still fresh. In my world… we have time… to come to terms with out fate. Grudges… are pointless. They help no monster…”

“They help us to remember,” Bones said. “To  _never_  make mistakes like that again.” Bones sighed, and forced himself to calm down. “But I can understand why your world would give up. Five hundred years… no one can hold anger that long. It would destroy their soul.”

Windows nodded. “We… had to find another way….”

Bones sighed. “Fine. It is not my place to judge in any case. But as interesting as these comparisons are, we are wasting time. You may be immortal, but I am not. I’d rather get out of here sooner rather than later.”

“Immortal?” Windows asked.

Bones huffed. “A boss monster. Separated from your kin completely. I doubt you’ll truly ever age a day again, unless you return to your own world. I on the other hand can still age.”

“Bones, I haven’t aged either and I’m human,” Aster said. “I think it’s just a void thing. And before you say it I didn’t even before being voidified.”

“An interesting theory, doctor…” Windows said. “Though, immortal or no, I do not wish to ‘waste time’ either. We will have to search for your world first. Are there any defining features that may assist me in identifying it?”

“I can help you look, if you’re using a window,” Bones said. “My explanations would not be helpful, as I do not know what to compare them too.” At this he stood up, and slowly stared to click his bones back in place.

“Um, if you two are going to go world-searching, mind if I read a book?” Aster piped up. She had been listening throughout their conversation, but was growing bored. And the process sounded like it would be a long and boring one.

Bones turned to her. “You will return to your own world.”

“What?” 

“You will return to your world, and rectify the issue with your brothers. You will be no use to me overcome with guilt, and we will be awhile searching anyways.” 

“Thanks for the concern,” Aster said sarcastically. “But in case you forgot, I’m  _terrible_  at getting times right. Who knows how long it would be before I made it back.  _If_ I even made it to the right void, cause this is a different one than the one I found you in.”

“Consider it practice for your terrible directional skills. You could use it,” Bones replied.

“…at worst, I may able to find her…” Windows said. “There are not many human-only worlds… not in comparison at least…”

“…wouldn’t it just be better that I avoid the whole potential mess entirely and just read here? I can go back after ya’ll are home.” Aster said.

“Stop avoiding your problems Aster,” Bones said. “You’ll never be able to live with yourself if you do not fix them, and you will be distracted until then. Besides, I’m fairly certain you will continue to find excuses to  _not_  going back unless I force you to now.”

“…why do you even  _care_  Bones? Just because you need me?” Aster asked.

“…I owe you a debt…” Bones muttered. “Do not be foolish enough to think I forgot about it. I cannot fix your problem. But I can make sure you do.”

“…makes sense, I guess. You’re heartless. But whatever… I don’t care…” Aster said. She sighed, and said, “Fine. I’ll go back. Good luck with the search while I’m gone.”

“…Aster,” Windows said, causing her to look over at him. “you mentioned before about undoing a mistake. You may not be able to undo it… but you can still try and repair the damage… remember that. Nothing is truly ruined… until you give up trying.”

“…you have no clue what you’re talking about,” Aster said darkly. “That was a far different mistake, and I  _can’t_  fix it. If anything, my disappearing here was my “fix”, but it just made things  _worse._  But… I’ll try and make things better. If just for my bro… I’m supposed to be the screwed-up sibling, not him.”

With that, Aster faded back out of the void.


	15. Judgement

Aster focuses on finding Sans again, and slowly faded back into reality. She looked around, and saw that she was back in the living room. The setting sun highlighted the golden-red colors of the room, bathing it in a golden light.

In front of her stood Sans, his head down and hands in his pockets. He apparently knew she was there, because he slowly said, “So, you finally returned.”

“Yes, I-” Aster started, but Sans cut her off.

“No. The time for talk has passed. Now, you will be judged for your actions.”

Aster swallowed, and stood silent. She had only seen Sans like this a few times before- deadly serious and calm. He almost frightened her like this, despite being younger and smaller. Besides… she knew she deserved… anything he said.

“Ask yourself, Aster Verdant. What has resulted from your actions? What fate have you wrought? And going forward, what will you change?”

Sans looked up, and met his sister’s eyes, holding her reluctant gaze. “You left Papyrus. You left myself. You turned your back on your family. That is the past. This is now. What, Aster, will you do?

“I-” Aster started, but Sans raised his hand to cut her off. Aster quieted, and he continued.

“My life is in shambles. Papyrus barely considers me his brother at all. You do not exist. Whatever reasons for your actions does not matter. What matters… is what you do now. So speak,” he said, pointed at her with his palm.

“I…” Aster started, then paused. “I won’t bother apologizing. Or trying to explain. It would change nothing… and you wouldn’t care. It doesn’t matter. But to fix this,” she said, waving around them, “I’m staying. I’ll figure something out. First thing will be getting your lazy butt off into a job that might actually get you to do something. Second will be pulling Pap and you aside and getting you to  _talk_  for heaven’s sake-”

Sans snorted. “You really think something like that will fix this?”

Aster frowned, then replied, “Look, I know it ain’t the best plan, but what else can I do? I can’t magically fix your head or your relationship with Pap. Got any better ideas?”

“Heh, I’m just the  lazy bottle-guzzler. You’re the atoner, sistern.”

Aster glowered at him, before saying, “There’s no call for name-calling ‘bro’.”

“What, can’t take a little heat? I thought it would ring a familiar bell, get you tempered to thai tongue, given that you’ve been ghosting for so long.”

Aster just groaned. “You really can’t stay serious can you?”

“Well, you can’t stay not-stupid, so I think it fits.”

Aster started forward, saying, “Look you moron, you have NO CLUE what you’re saying. You don’t have ANY idea of what I’ve been doing or what I’ve been through. Ya, I messed you up, and I’m sorry. I’ll try to fix it, I promise. But I will  _not_  take you insulting me like a child!”

“Says the person screaming like a little girl,” Sans replied. “I know what you’ve been up to. Goofing off with some new idea or project, forgetting that your family even exists, yet again… Oh, and friendly tip. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I  _never_  forgot. And I wasn’t  _goofing_  off, I was trying to help someone! Oh, and promises. When did I _ever_ promise to stay with your guys? When did I  _ever_  promise to take care of you? I’m not your mom Sans, though Lord knows I have to  _act_  like it at times.”

Sans barked a laugh. “You’re as responsible as I am hard-working Aster. We aren’t goats, let’s not kid ourselves. You bleat and bully to get your way, but you could never cut a trail we could climb. I suppose I’m a really a nanny to think you’d actually keep that promise, but-”

“ _What promise?!I”_ Aster said. “Tell me!”

Sans huffed. “You don’t remember? The last time we saw each other? You can hardly forget  _that_  day.”

“…” Aster paused, slowly turning white as a sheet. Sans started when he saw her change color, and started to ask if she was okay when Aster said, “…I… Sans… all I told you… was to take Pap… to get away…”

“…” Sans looks confused, then cocked his head to the side. “Uh… no… sis, the last time I saw you… you were leaving. For That Place, remember? You told us… you told us… nothing would ever separate us. You’d never let anything keep us apart. That… you’d come back. You would always come back. I held onto that… you think foster care is easy? We didn’t have a good place to stay. We didn’t have anything at all- just each other. And your promise. But you never came”

“Well, I have now,” Aster said.

Sans just gave her a dark look. “Ya. 15 years too late.”

Aster sighed. “Seriously bro, I meant to be away  _maybe_  five years, that’s it. Maybe that’s inexcusable, but sue me for not wanting to live anymore. Not the life I had. I didn’t know this would happen- I couldn’t.”

“And meanwhile we split apart…. Our lives  _fell_  apart. ” Sans muttered. “  Then he sighed, and said, “Maybe it wouldn’t have worked. Two broken kids trying to raise a third. Sounds like a bad sit-com.”

“You should write it,” Aster cracked. 

Sans smiled a bit, then frowned and continued. “But… it would have been  _better_  Aster. To stay together. Why didn’t you think of that? Why did you never think of us?”

“…Sans… I… I gave up hope of ever seeing you again, really… I had messed up… too much. They… they never would have let me… not take you. Not raise you. Not  _visit_  you probably. It would be better… if your foster parents didn’t know I existed. That we were related. It would only cause you problems… and Pap. Lord, Pap! It would have held him back so much. I… maybe it was cowardly, or selfish. But I couldn’t… I  _wouldn’t_  see you guys. Not until I almost died… then all that reasoning seemed meaningless. I guess it all is now…”

“Getting your marbles together ain’t a crime Aster,” Sans said, “besides, we were kids. It’s all fun and games until-”

“-someone gets killed. Exactly.” Aster said.

Sans stared at her a little, then started shaking his head. “Heh. Good joke sis. A little kid like you? Please. Pap is more dangerous than you are.”

“I would not underestimate the great Papyrus!” A booming voice said. Both siblings turned pale and looked towards the door. There, leaning against it like he had been for ages, stood Pap. 

“Uh, bro…-” Sans started-

“It’s not polite to eavesdrop-” Aster said

But Papyrus cut them both off. “It would seem to me that you two have a problem! But fear not, for I am here to solve it!”

Pap strode into the room, and grabbed both Aster and Sans by the shoulder. He bobbed his head and quietly said, “You know how?”

“How?” Aster asked, though Sans just sighed.

“Why, by correcting both your mistakes!” he declares.

“…heh?” both siblings ask, looking at Pap.

Pap shakes his head and tuts. “Both of you have made a great error.” He released the two and stood back. 

“Sister!” he said, pointing at Aster, “You have wallowed in the past for too long! Whatever happened, you must move onward, and forward! Always seek greater heights! Don’t get bogged down by guilt, or doubt!”

“Brother!” he said, pointing to Sans, “You have underestimated me! While I may nag and cajole you, I have never thought of you as less than the brother of the Great Papyrus! And you have underestimated yourself! You can achieve your dreams, as I have!”

Sans chuckled. “Maybe my amazing bro can achieve everything, but little old me? I can’t keep a guard job. Much less win your respect.”

Papyrus frowned. “Brother. You cannot  _earn_  my respect-”

Sans laughed again, humorlessly. “See Aster? At least now you say it. What’s the issue Pap? Am I too lazy? Too stupid? Too much of a drunken wreck to be associated with you-”

“SANS! Enough!” Papyrus shouted. Sans stopped, eyes wide in shock.

“You cannot  _earn_  my respect because you already  _have_ it! You  _always_  had it! You are my brilliant and lazy big brother who always looked out for me and told me to follow my dreams. What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t respect you? …do you really think so little of me?”

“So little- Papyrus, you are the greatest person I know, you know that.”

“Great people don’t forget their families, or friends, when the reach fame! To do so would be a travesty! So if I am great, how can I forgot about you?”

“But- I- uh-” Sans stuttered a little bit, before shaking his head and sighing. “I wont’ argue with you bro. But if you respect me… why do you spend more time with that celebrity than me?”

“Sans. Jealousy does not befit you,” Pap said, crossing his arms and frowning. “I will not cease spending time with Mett because of your insecurity. Perhaps if you were ever awake when I was, we could go out more often. I suggest, “Sans! Let us jog in the park! It will make us stronger, and better able to chase down and defeat any ne'er-do-well!” And you respond that you are sleeping.”

“…so the jogging wasn’t because I was a lazy skeleton?”

Pap rolled his eyes. “You  _are_  lazy, but that is not the point! The point is, I attempt to spent time with you, and you always refuse!”

Sans shook his head, then smiled a bit. “Okay bro… how bout this. We do something… that  _doesn’t_  involve me coughing up a lung. Have a heart, would ya, my brain’s my best asset, I don’t have the stomach for running.”

Papyrus groaned loudly, and Sans smiled broadly. Then Pap said, “ _Fine_ , as long as you lay off your galling puns!”

“Deals bro,” Sans said, and they shook on it, trying not to crack up laughing.

“Well, sounds like everything’s good, I’m just going to go look for job listings” Aster said, trying to slide out of the room. She could vanish… but she though that Sans would kill her if she did that  _again_. 

“Not so fast!” Papyrus said. “For now I must deal with you.”

He walked over to Aster, and pout his hands on her shoulders.

“Sister. I did not know I had one. Why did I not know? Why would you and Sans keep this from me?”

“I-” Aster started, but Sans cut her off.

“I didn’t want you to be hurt Pap,” Sans said. “Like I had been. Aster… it’s complicated, but she ceased to exist as far as this timeline is concerned. You couldn’t remember her… mentioning it would only hurt you.”

“Or hurt you Sans?” Aster said softly. “Since he wouldn’t believe you?”

Pap sighed, and put his chin on Aster’s head. “You two  _still_  underestimate me. I will always believe you, and believe in you.

He pulled back a bit, and said, “Aster. Sister. You have said that you messed up. Now is the time to bare your soul- tell us. What happened?”

Aster shook her head vehemently, and pushed Pap away. “No, no, I won’t, I  _won’t_  tell you. You forgot, thank God you forgot, I don’t- I refuse to bring it up. Let the past die, like you said.”

Pap frowned. “That’s not what I meant-”

“What good would it do anyways?” Aster asked. “It never  _happened_. Or might as well not. Any damage… it’s undone by my vanishing. No, that’s not right,.  _so much damage has been done_ , but the memory is gone. Dead. Please Pap… let it stay that way…”

Pap sighed. “I will- under one condition.”

“Name it,” Aster said.

“Join me in cooking. I have so many things to teach you now! And I miss that wacky food you’d make.”

Aster and Sans looked shocked, so he continued. “I can’t remember you exactly. But do you think me a ditz? I know you can’t cook Sans. And Mother couldn’t fight.  _Someone else_  did. And someone else sparred with me, and raced me to the old oak tree,  and talked about books all day long,” and at that Aster snorted. Pap looked at her, then continued. “I knew pieces were missing. I may have been a child Sans, but I have a good memory. I thought about it often once we split. I couldn’t figure out why you never mentioned them, or our parents for that matter. It was like you forgot all about them…”

“Some things are better off forgotten Pap,” Aster said. “They… weren’t good people.”

“Nonsense! Everything can be good, if they try!”

Aster smiled. “You still believe that? How… sweet.” She shook her head and laughed. “You are so much nicer than me Pap! I can’t think of a better teacher.”

“So you’ll stay?” Pap said.

“Of course! I said I would. I have to leave, eventually, but. Not until I know you two are okay. I can’t fix what I did, but. I want to the future to be better.”

Sans and Pap looked at each other, then her, and nodded. “Sounds good to me,” Sans said, and gave a thumbs up. 

“Now Greant family, let’s start dinner! Sans, you too. Make something to drink- virgin got it?”

Sans and Aster laughed and rolled there eyes. “Aye aye captain!” they said, giving an exaggerated salute, and followed him to the kitchen. 


End file.
